GL Ventures' 41.6 billion-yuan heavy position in Gree Electric Appliances is trapped, and its floating loss from the position in Innolight exceeds 400 million yuan.
On the evening of October 26, Gree Electric (000651.SZ) released its third-quarter report for 2026. Financial data shows that in the third quarter of 2026, Gree Electric achieved operating revenue of about 36.678 billion yuan, down 7.97% year on year; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was about 3.996 billion yuan, down 43.31% year on year. In the first three quarters of this year, Gree Electric recorded operating revenue of about 126.075 billion yuan, down 8.1% year on year; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was about 17.274 billion yuan, down 19.51% year on year.
On October 28, Gree Electric closed at 37.3 yuan per share, with a total market value of about 208.932 billion yuan. This price is nearly 20% lower than the transfer price of Zhuhai Mingjun Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) (hereinafter referred to as "Zhuhai Mingjun"), an investment platform under GL Ventures Capital Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "GL Ventures Capital"), 7 years ago.
With the weakening of Gree Electric's Q3 performance and the continuous pressure on its stock price in the past two years, the pressure of this mixed-ownership reform investment by Zhuhai Mingjun, which lasted 7 years and cost 41.662 billion yuan, has further highlighted.
In 2019, Gree Electric launched the mixed-ownership reform. In April of that year, Gree Group issued an announcement, intending to publicly collect transferees to transfer 15% of the equity of Gree Electric. At that time, many leading institutions including GL Ventures participated in the bidding. After several rounds of competition, Zhuhai Mingjun, established under the leadership of GL Ventures, finally won the bid.
According to the detailed equity change report disclosed by Gree Electric in December 2019, Zhuhai Mingjun acquired 902 million shares of Gree Electric held by Gree Group at the agreed transfer price of 46.17 yuan per share, costing 41.662 billion yuan, accounting for 15% of the total share capital, and replaced the Zhuhai state-owned assets as the largest shareholder of Gree Electric.
After the completion of this transaction, Gree Electric formed a market-oriented equity structure with no controlling shareholder and no actual controller. At the same time, Gezhen Investment, the shareholding platform of Dong Mingzhu and the core management team, joined Zhuhai Mingjun with a small share, binding the operating interests of Gree Electric, ensuring the stability of the original management team and long-term business strategy of the enterprise. Zhuhai Mingjun also promised to maintain the stability of Gree's core team and not promote the relocation of Gree Electric's registered address out of Zhuhai.
Different from conventional equity investment, this mixed-ownership reform investment of over 400 billion yuan adopted a 1:1 high-leverage financing structure with extremely rigid capital cost. The announcement shows that among the total investment of 41.662 billion yuan, Zhuhai Mingjun's own capital contribution is only about 21.85 billion yuan, and the remaining 20.831 billion yuan all comes from bank syndicated M&A loans, accounting for about 50% of the total investment.
In December 2019, Zhuhai Mingjun signed the first batch of M&A loan agreements with seven banks including China Merchants Bank, Bank of China and Ping An Bank. The initial term of the loan was 5 to 7 years, and it was agreed that the first 3 years would be the principal grace period, during which only interest needs to be paid without principal repayment. After the transaction was completed, Zhuhai Mingjun pledged all the 902 million shares of Gree Electric it held to the syndicate as credit enhancement guarantee.
In order to optimize financing costs and adjust the repayment cycle, on April 28, 2021, Zhuhai Mingjun completed debt replacement, signed a new loan agreement with three banks including Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of Communications and Ping An Bank. The newly added 20.8 billion yuan loan fully replaced the old syndicated loan in the early stage, the maximum term of the new loan was adjusted to 6 years, and the debt maturity date was postponed to 2026, which also laid the groundwork for its subsequent share reduction to repay debts.
During the 7 years of shareholding, Gree Electric continued to distribute dividends at a high proportion, becoming a stable cash flow source for Zhuhai Mingjun. According to Gree Electric's dividend announcements, statistics from Times Finance show that from 2020 to 2025, Gree Electric implemented annual and semi-annual cash dividends for 6 consecutive years, with a total pre-tax dividend of about 17.3 yuan per share. Corresponding to the 902 million shares initially held by Zhuhai Mingjun, Zhuhai Mingjun received a total pre-tax dividend of about 15.6 billion yuan in 6 years.
However, with the centralized maturity of the replacement loan in 2026, the rigid debt repayment pressure increased sharply, Zhuhai Mingjun launched its first share reduction since it laid out Gree Electric, and this share reduction is fully for debt repayment. In February 2026, Gree Electric disclosed the major shareholder's share reduction plan, Zhuhai Mingjun reduced its shares in the company through block trading, and finally reduced a total of 42.7931 million shares, accounting for 0.76% of the total share capital. The average transaction price of the reduction was 37.13 yuan per share, with a total cash out of about 1.589 billion yuan, and all the funds obtained were used to repay the mature bank M&A loans.
After the completion of this share reduction, the number of shares held by Zhuhai Mingjun decreased from 902 million to 860 million, and it is still the largest shareholder of Gree Electric. As of October 28, 2026, the closing price of Gree Electric in the secondary market is 37.3 yuan per share. Based on this static calculation, the market value of the remaining 860 million shares held by Zhuhai Mingjun in the secondary market is about 32 billion yuan.
Combined with the total initial investment of 41.662 billion yuan and the cash out of 1.589 billion yuan from share reduction, this 10-billion-level mixed-ownership reform investment of GL Ventures that lasted for 7 years currently has a floating loss of about 8 billion yuan in the secondary market due to the stock price pullback.
This investment in Gree Electric by GL Ventures is the epitome of the pressure on its multiple heavy cross-track layouts in recent years.
In the photovoltaic track, in December 2020, HHLR Management Pte. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "HHLR"), under GL Ventures, transferred the shares of Li Chun'an, the original shareholder of LONGi Green Energy Technology (601012.SH) through agreement transfer, acquiring about 226 million shares at a price of 70 yuan per share, with a total transaction consideration of about 15.841 billion yuan.
After two dividend and share transfer plans of LONGi Green Energy Technology, the 2022 annual report of LONGi Green Energy Technology disclosed that HHLR's shareholding reached a peak of about 444 million shares, and the shareholding ratio remained unchanged. Before and after the implementation of this agreement transfer, the stock price of LONGi Green Energy Technology in the secondary market was in the range of about 25 yuan per share to 38 yuan per share.
In the second half of 2025, HHLR launched large-scale share reduction, reducing 37.5572 million shares through centralized bidding from June to August 2025, with the share reduction price range of 14.88 yuan per share to 16.62 yuan per share, and the total cash out was about 584 million yuan. By 2026, GL Ventures' HHLR completely withdrew from the list of top ten tradable shareholders of LONGi Green Energy Technology. On October 28, the closing price of LONGi Green Energy Technology had fallen back to 11.27 yuan per share.
In July this year, HHLRA Management Pte. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "HHLRA"), an investment platform under GL Ventures, as a cornerstone investor of the Hong Kong stock IPO of Innolight (03308.HK), its book value has been in a state of continuous floating loss since Innolight was listed on the Hong Kong stock market.
On July 29, 2026, Innolight disclosed the "Final Offer Price and Allocation Result Announcement" on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, confirming that the final issue price for the global offering of H shares was HK$980 per share, and the list of cornerstone investors was officially finalized. Among them, HHLRA promised to invest 300 million US dollars to subscribe for H shares of Innolight, and finally obtained 2.3696 million allocated shares, accounting for 4.35% of the total global offering shares.
The next day, Innolight officially landed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and broke the issue price, with an opening price of HK$971 per share, the lowest intraday drop to HK$880 per share, and the closing price of HK$960 per share, down 2.04% from the issue price of HK$980 per share.
After listing, the H share price of Innolight continued to fluctuate downward. As of October 28, the H share of Innolight closed at HK$785 per share, with a cumulative drop of 19.9% compared with the issue price of HK$980 per share.
Calculated at the closing price of HK$785 per share on October 28, the total market value of 2.3696 million shares held by HHLRA is about HK$1.86 billion. The original subscription cost is 300 million US dollars, which is about HK$2.353 billion calculated at the spot exchange rate of US dollar to Hong Kong dollar on July 29. This means that as of October 28, the static book floating loss of this cornerstone investment in the secondary market has reached about HK$493 million, equivalent to about 422 million yuan.
However, according to the agreement in the placement document, all shares allocated to cornerstone investors are subject to a 6-month lock-up period, and the sale prohibition deadline is January 29, 2027. HHLRA shall not sell its shares in the secondary market during the lock-up period. Restricted by this, HHLRA cannot reduce its holdings for cash as of the current point, and the final profit and loss of this investment still depends on the market price of Innolight's H shares when the lifting window opens.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Times Finance APP" (ID: tf-app), written by Sheng Lan and Gao Qiurong, edited by Gao Qiurong, and published by 36Kr with authorization.