One person founded two listed companies.
Let's start with the latest donation.
Recently, as Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) celebrated its 87th anniversary, Shaanxi Huaqin Technology Industry Co., Ltd. donated 100 million yuan to NPU, specifically to support the construction of the school's young talent team and the development of the materials discipline. The helmsman of Huaqin Technology is Zhe Shengyang, an alumnus of the School of Materials at NPU from the class of 1977.
Few people outside know that Zhe Shengyang now holds controlling stakes in two listed companies on the STAR Market: Huaqin Technology and BLT. Since starting his business, Zhe Shengyang has been collaborating with his university classmates to transform scientific research achievements, and now the combined market value of the companies he's involved in exceeds 40 billion yuan.
A 70-year-old NPU alumnus owns two STAR Market-listed companies
Back in 1955, Zhe Shengyang was born into a peasant family in Zhejiaping, Qingjian County, northern Shaanxi. After graduating from high school, he got a job as a math teacher. Fortunately, the college entrance examination was restored, and Zhe Shengyang was admitted to NPU to study materials science and technology.
After graduating from university, Zhe Shengyang worked at the Thermal Technology Research Institute of Xi'an Qing'an Group Co., Ltd. under AVIC, mainly engaged in research on materials science and engineering technology. As an undergraduate, he became the leader of a national aviation project research group. At the age of only 27, he became the director of the Thermal Technology Institute of Qing'an Aerospace Equipment Company and was later promoted to the Shaanxi Science and Technology Consulting Service Center.
Zhe Shengyang, who had a smooth career path, chose to change the direction of his life. During the boom of starting businesses in the 1990s, in 1992, Zhe Shengyang resigned and founded "Shaanxi Huaqin Technology Industry Co., Ltd.", the predecessor of Huaqin Technology. At that time, there was a choice between being a government official or going into business, between a stable job and entrepreneurship. Zhe Shengyang also struggled with this decision. Years later, he talked about his original intention of "going into business", saying, "To develop and promote emerging and high-tech technologies and take the industrialization path."
Entrepreneurship always comes with various challenges. When the company was first established, Zhe Shengyang didn't even have a place to settle down. The office he finally took a fancy to cost 100,000 yuan in rent per year. With only 65,000 yuan in savings, he had to ask his friends to act as guarantors to get a place to work. After getting the office, Zhe Shengyang started from planning scientific research projects and writing feasibility study reports, and gradually developed into project demonstration and feasibility evaluation, carrying out science and technology service consulting business across the province.
In the first year of the company's establishment, the gross income reached 6 million yuan. After earning his first pot of gold, Zhe Shengyang was obviously not satisfied with just doing consulting business. In 1996, Huaqin Technology, mainly relying on the team of Professor Zhou Wancheng from NPU, cooperated with NPU to conduct pre - research and cultivation of special functional materials technology.
For a long time after that, Huaqin Technology used its company's income to support scientific research projects. During this process, the employees were also skeptical about investing in these "high - tech" projects with long cycles, slow results, and uncertain futures. But Zhe Shengyang firmly believed that the transformation of scientific research achievements takes time, and this process may take decades or even generations. "You have to be prepared for a large amount of money to be wasted; otherwise, there will be no scientific research achievements." Interestingly, when there was a shortage of funds once, Zhe Shengyang solved the urgent problem by stock trading.
This research lasted for at least a decade. In 2012, Huaqin Technology made a major breakthrough in the research and development of stealth materials, passed the assessment for a certain type of equipment in the military field, and the company officially entered a new stage of transforming scientific research achievements from basic research to applied research. To this day, Huaqin Technology has become an "invisible champion" in special functional materials, achieving innovative research and development and independent supply of key core materials in the aerospace and high - end equipment fields.
In 2022, Huaqin Technology was officially listed on the STAR Market and became the most expensive new stock of that year. It's worth mentioning that this was not his first time on the listing ceremony stage. In July 2019, BLT, a high - tech enterprise focusing on industrial - grade metal additive manufacturing (3D printing), was listed on the A - share market as one of the first batch of companies on the STAR Market. Its service application fields cover aviation, aerospace, energy, automotive, industry, electronics, molds, medical dentistry, university research, etc. Zhe Shengyang is also one of the actual controllers of BLT.
At the age of 70 this year, Zhe Shengyang holds two STAR Market - listed companies with a combined market value of over 40 billion yuan.
Repaying his alma mater
After more than three decades of entrepreneurship, Zhe Shengyang and NPU have been closely intertwined.
Over the years, Zhe Shengyang and his alma mater, NPU, have explored a relatively successful "industry - university - research" cooperation system: NPU mainly focuses on basic and forward - looking research on technologies such as stealth, camouflage, and protection, while Huaqin Technology focuses on competitive and directly applicable technology development and practical applications, and the two sides share research results.
His former classmates have become important partners for Zhe Shengyang. At university, Zhe Shengyang and Zhou Wancheng were classmates, and they often studied with Huang Weidong and Jie Wanqi from the same major. Different from Zhe Shengyang's choice, the other classmates chose to stay at the school after graduation to continue scientific research.
But fate brought them together again. The team led by Zhou Wancheng is responsible for the technical research of Huaqin Technology. In 2011, Zhe Shengyang invested and cooperated with the scientific research team of Professor Huang Weidong to establish BLT Laser Forming Technology Co., Ltd., the predecessor of BLT. This is how the two billion - yuan - level listed companies came into being. In addition, Zhe Shengyang also jointly established Shaanxi Ditaike New Materials Co., Ltd. with the team of Professor Jie Wanqi.
According to incomplete statistics from public information, there are many NPU alumni in the teams of Huaqin Technology and BLT. More than half of the senior management team of Huaqin Technology, including Zhe Shengyang, Zhou Wancheng, Luo Fa, and Huang Zhibin, are from NPU. Xue Lei, the chairman and general manager of BLT, graduated from the School of Materials at NPU; Sun Xiaomei, a non - independent director, graduated from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at NPU; and Xu Yadong, an independent director, is a professor at the School of Materials at NPU...
"Our alma mater is the place where our dreams set sail," Zhe Shengyang recalled at the donation ceremony. "It is this fertile ground of our alma mater that has provided us with batches of excellent scientific and management talents and cutting - edge scientific research support, enabling us to have the ability and confidence to continuously break through in market competition and achieve sustainable and high - quality development."
He never forgets his roots after success. According to reports, from 2011 to the present, Zhe Shengyang, along with Huaqin Technology and BLT, have donated funds and in - kind donations worth more than 70 million yuan to the school in total, strongly supporting the school's talent introduction, faculty construction, talent cultivation, college development, and alumni's innovation and entrepreneurship. Now, with another donation of 100 million yuan, it will be specifically used to support the construction of the school's young talent team and the development of the materials discipline.
This kind of thing happening at NPU is not accidental.
Located in Xi'an, NPU is not very well - known nationwide, but it is a national - recognized defense industry university and is affectionately called one of the "Seven Sons of National Defense". In the past few decades, NPU has created many "firsts" with distinct national defense characteristics in the history of New China. Historically, the first engineering doctoral degrees in disciplines such as foundry, aerospace manufacturing engineering, flight mechanics, aero - engines, and rocket engines in the country were all awarded to graduates from NPU.
Therefore, with a strong engineering gene, NPU has produced many "high - end and sophisticated" projects. These projects have gone into the sky, underground, and underwater, forming a unique entrepreneurial group in multiple hardcore fields such as aviation, aerospace, navigation, materials, and manufacturing.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Investment World" (ID: pedaily2012). The author is Wu Qiong, and it is published by 36Kr with authorization.