text | AI Finance Society Liu Xueer
editor | Lu Ming
Zhao Weiguo , who worked in 117 companies, finally couldn't hold on any longer.
On the evening of April 8, two listed companies under Unisplendour - Unisplendour Co., Ltd. and Unisplendour National Core issued announcements stating that Zhao Weiguo resigned as director and chairman of the company due to busy work, and would no longer hold any position in the two companies after his resignation. .
Zhao Weiguo posted on WeChat: "It is indeed too busy. Listed companies have too much procedural work." Ziguang Group responded that Zhao Weiguo still serves as the chairman of Ziguang Group. There is a reason why
is so busy at work. Zhao Weiguo is known as the "Merger Hungry Tiger" in the industry. He invested 50 billion in mergers and acquisitions in 8 months and served as the legal person of 64 companies. He talked about this very much, saying that investing is like a woman going shopping. Once she makes a move, she will be a hungry tiger. However, the secrets behind the mergers and acquisitions are still controversial.
Tsinghua’s counterattack on feeding piglets
Zhao Weiguo, who is now the chairman of Unisplendour Group, has been associated with this company under Tsinghua Holdings since he was admitted to Tsinghua University 33 years ago.
In 1978, everything was going well, and Zhao Weiguo's destiny was at a crossroads. Regardless of his father's advice to learn a trade, Zhao Weiguo chose the college entrance examination and was admitted to the Department of Electronic Engineering of Tsinghua University in 1985. Previously, due to political reasons of his father's generation, he spent his childhood in a small village in Tacheng, Xinjiang, feeding pigs and herding sheep every day.
During his college career, Zhao Weiguo remained unknown, just like Yu Minhong back then. "I thought I was a genius before I went to college. It was only after I entered Tsinghua University that I realized that the genius was someone else." He was an average student. Inspired by "Silicon Valley Fever", he had the idea of starting a business for the first time. While
was studying for his master's degree, Zhao Weiguo started working as a part-time engineer at Ziguang Group. This was his first encounter with Ziguang. Later, he was transferred to Tsinghua Tongfang, another company owned by Tsinghua Holdings, and participated in Tongfang's merger and acquisition of Jiangxi Radio Factory.
Zhao Weiguo, who was 30 years old at the time, may not have expected that decades later he would be dubbed the "Hungry Tiger for Acquisitions" and would build a huge and controversial business empire.
Zhao Weiguo’s entrepreneurial spirit finally came to fruition in 2005. He established Beijing Jiankun Investment Group Co., Ltd., which now holds 70% of the shares, and entered the real estate and mining industries.
Here, Zhao Weiguo accumulated his first pot of gold. "Getting into real estate at that time was like grabbing money. I took 1 million to Xinjiang, and when I came back I had earned 4.5 billion, a profit of 4,500 times!" he recalled to "Today".
Zhao Weiguo, who had made money, was noticed by the leaders of Tsinghua University and was very happy. At that time, Ziguang Group was in trouble and was short of people. And Zhao Weiguo is not averse to renewing his relationship with Ziguang. He told the media that on the one hand, he has been restricted by the ceiling after starting his business for a long time, and on the other hand, he still has deep feelings for Tsinghua University and Ziguang.
In June 2009, at the shareholders’ meeting and board of directors of Ziguang Group, Tsinghua Holdings announced the introduction of Jiankun Group, allowing it to subscribe for the shares held by Beijing Tourism Group and increase capital. At the same time, Zhao Weiguo was appointed as the general manager of Ziguang Group. Although the old shareholders were dissatisfied due to the issue of stock pre-emptive rights, Zhao Weiguo still successfully took over Ziguang. Third-party information platform Tianyancha shows that Beijing Jiankun holds 49% of the shares, and the remaining 51% is held by Tsinghua Holdings.
Zhao Weiguo revealed to the media that the first two years were mainly about solving Ziguang’s survival problems. Sometimes the company could not send out funds, and he even paid for it out of his own pocket without receiving salary. After the survival problem of
was solved, Zhao Weiguo was racking his brains on how to develop. At a time when the country has included integrated circuits and in its strategic direction, and is also preparing to set up a 130 billion integrated circuit industry investment fund, Zhao Weiguo has listed semiconductors as the main direction of Ziguang. After discovering that good projects were hard to find, mergers and acquisitions became Zhao Weiguo's booster in developing his company.
html Invested and acquired 50 billion in 78 months
Zhao Weiguo had a hard time finding projects. Firstly, there were too few good projects, and secondly, it took a long time to incubate. As a result, buying and selling became his standard in life, and Zhao Weiguo also earned the title of "Hungry Tiger".
Zhao Weiguo’s capital minions became prominent in 2013.In July of that year, Ziguang Group reached a privatization agreement with Spreadtrum, with a total transaction price of US$1.78 billion; in November, Ziguang acquired RDA in the same way for US$907 million. Since then, Ziguang has grown from a mobile phone chip layman to one of the top three mobile phone chip design companies in the world in terms of baseband chip shipments, laying the foundation for Ziguang’s core business.
In September 2014, the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund was officially established, and new entrant Ziguang accelerated its acquisitions in the semiconductor field.
In February 2015, Ziguang Communications, a subsidiary of Tsinghua Unigroup, spent 1 billion yuan to subscribe for 480 million shares of TCL. In April, Ziguang Intelligent and Ziguang 4.0 invested 2 billion and 1 billion yuan respectively to participate in the additional issuance of Shenyang Machine Tools. In May, Tsinghua Unigroup acquired a 51% stake in HP's "New H3C" for US$2.8 billion.
Investment and mergers and acquisitions in the second half of 2015 are still crazy. In July, Tsinghua Unigroup invested US$100 million in mobile operating system company Acadine. In September, Tsinghua Unigroup announced the acquisition of 15% of Western Digital shares for US$3.8 billion. In October, Tsinghua Unigroup acquired a 25% stake in Taiwan’s Licheng Technology for US$600 million.
According to previous reports from the Beijing News, since 2013, Ziguang has invested in and acquired 16 companies (excluding those that were suspended or terminated later), spending hundreds of billions of yuan, including 11 companies in the chip field. AI Finance and Economics found that in the eight months of 2015 alone, Ziguang’s external investment and acquisitions amounted to RMB 50 billion.
Zhao Weiguo’s business relationship network is also complicated. Tianyancha, a third-party information platform, shows that in addition to revoked and canceled companies, Zhao Weiguo serves as a legal person in 64 companies and also holds executive positions in 117 companies. According to the 2018 Forbes rich list, Zhao Weiguo ranked 264th in China with a net worth of US$1.8 billion (approximately 11.3 billion yuan).
Speaking of Zhao Weiguo's investment strategy, he once publicly revealed: "I invest like a woman shopping. I take the trouble to look. Once I take a fancy, I will pounce on it." Investors who speculate in stocks.” Foxconn founder Terry Gou said this about Zhao Weiguo in an interview with the media. In the final analysis, Zhao Weiguo's mergers and acquisitions are highly controversial, especially regarding the source of funds.
The Information cooperated with the Financial Times to release a report showing that in the first half of 2017, China’s top 20 financing transactions totaled US$43 billion in terms of financing scale. Among them, Tsinghua Unigroup ranked first with US$22 billion. The financier behind it was The government-backed private equity fund’s financing amount is four times that of the second-place Didi.
According to Chuangshiji, industry insiders said that Zhao Weiguo’s acquisition of well-known companies is more like taking advantage of the national industrial policy to obtain government financial support and investment preferential treatment.
Zhao Weiguo publicly responded in 2015 that it is far from enough to rely on the country and its own accumulated capital to develop industries. "Unisoc Light may invest 10 billion U.S. dollars (approximately 63.1 billion yuan) in less than two years. In addition to the capital market, there are also industrial investments." . We have turned the expensive business of mergers and acquisitions into a profitable business. Through capital premium and appreciation, our assets have increased by more than 70 billion yuan in two years."
Zhao Weiguo once summed up his logic: "If the capital invests in us, we will take the money. When doing business, capital goes to the capital market for arbitrage, which is described as Internet thinking - the wool comes from the pig. "
From this point of view, listed companies are the best chess pieces to make profits. In May 2015, Tsinghua Unigroup, which had been suspended from trading for half a year, announced that it planned to raise funds to acquire part of the equity of Hong Kong H3C and other companies. After the resumption of trading, Ziguang Co., Ltd. closed 16 daily limits in a row. Compared with the 28.91 yuan/share before the suspension, the highest closing price was 133.60 yuan/share. In 16 days, the market value increased by 109.1 billion yuan.
is exactly the same as Fang Guoxin. In November 2015, an 80 billion yuan fixed increase plan was released. Tongfang Guoxin (now renamed Ziguang Guoxin) stock price continued to rise, and its market value increased by 10.2 billion yuan in 40 days. What is intriguing is that the private placement was terminated due to the new refinancing regulations of the China Securities Regulatory Commission in 2017. Under the controversy over
, Zhao Weiguo's merger and acquisition journey has also become more stormy.
In July 2015, Ziguang’s plan to acquire Micron Technology for US$23 billion was rejected; in September, it reached an acquisition agreement with Western Digital, the world’s second largest hard disk manufacturer, but the plan eventually aborted; it was rumored that South Korea’s SK Hynix had rejected Ziguang’s investment.
Some people in the industry questioned that Ziguang’s acquisition did not establish a complete semiconductor industry chain. Very few of the acquired companies transferred their technology, talents and research centers to the mainland. It did not provide much help in improving local technology and was more like a waste. The country has too many dollar reserves.
As for Zhao Weiguo's resignation, some people in the industry believe that this may be a passive choice under a radical merger and acquisition strategy. But no matter what, he is still the leader of Ziguang Group, and the temporary "buy, buy, buy" may continue.
