But in the inverted lithium iron phosphate track, who is the dark horse? Since Longpan Technology announced the completion of a 2.2 billion yuan private placement on May 30, 2022, its stock price has begun to rise.

Reporter | Yin Jingfei

Edit |

From car lubricant to lithium battery track, Longpan Technology (603906.SH) "holds" CATL (300750.SZ) "thighs", intending to show its strength. But in the inverse lithium iron phosphate track, who is the dark horse?

Since Longpan Technology announced the completion of a 2.2 billion yuan private placement on May 30, 2022, its stock price has begun to rise. Calculated based on the closing price of , as of June 15, the company's stock price rose from 29.95 yuan/share to 36.78 yuan/share, and the stock price of increased by more than 20% in 11 trading days. The book profit of 15 private placement subscription institutions was 38%. Since the lithium battery concept was adopted, Longpan Technology's market value has increased sharply, from 2.9 billion yuan at the end of May 2020 to 17.7 billion yuan today, an increase of about 510%. But in the track of investing in lithium iron phosphate, can this upward trend continue? And has Longpan Technology retained enough momentum?

"Ningwang"

Longpan Technology's original main business focused on automobile complete vehicle manufacturing and automobile aftermarket. Its main products include lubricant, diesel engine exhaust treatment liquid, engine coolant, and automotive maintenance products. The company's revenue growth entered a bottleneck period before 2021, and the stock price rose lacked imagination space, and its market value once stagnated at 20 to 30 billion yuan.

In 2020, the company began to look for the second growth curve.

At the end of that year, Bertray, the leader of negative electrode materials, signed a contract with Longpan Technology to sell its lithium iron phosphate-related assets and businesses to the latter. In 2021, the company began to transform and undertake new energy business with Changzhou Lithium Source New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Changzhou Lithium Source) as a springboard.

Day Eye Check shows that Changzhou Lithium Source was also established on May 12, 2021. In June 2021, Tianjin Nano and Jiangsu Nano, a subsidiary of Betre, completed the delivery and transfer and transferred to Changzhou Lithium Source.

After taking over the lithium iron phosphate assets, Changzhou Lithium Source has joined the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and the "lithium battery leader" CATL.

December 16, 2021 Changzhou Lithium Source welcomes two highly valued investment institutions. Tianyan Check shows that Fujian Times Mindong New Energy Industry Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) holds about 10.43% of , and Ningbo Meishan Bonded Port District Wending Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Wending Investment) holds about 9.57% of stake.

The actual controller of the former is the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and its shareholders include: Qingdao SAIC Innovation and Upgrade Industry Equity Investment Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership), Ningde Transportation Investment Group Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Ningde State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and the third largest shareholder is CATL.

and the investment is based on 100% investment from CATL 4 holding . In summary, CATL holds 12.72% of shares of Changzhou Lithium Source.

In June 2021, Changzhou Lithium Source Company was merged into a listed company, driving Longpan Technology's revenue to double. In 2021, the company's total operating income was 4.054 billion yuan, and its net profit attributable to shareholders was 351 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 110% and 70% respectively.

holding subsidiary Changzhou Lithium Source has operating income of 1.895 billion yuan, accounting for 46.7% of the listed company's revenue, net profit of 225 million yuan, and net profit attributable to shareholders of 174 million yuan, contributing nearly 50% of the listed company's net profit attributable to shareholders.

7 billion bet on lithium iron phosphate

market value has soared and revenue has soared. Longpan Technology is fully betting on the lithium iron phosphate track.

On June 13 this year, the company decided to change Zhangjiagang's original investment project "Environmental Fine Chemicals Project" to "Three-way positive electrode material precursor and other projects" and increase the investment scale to 1.5 billion yuan.

In fact, since the second half of 2021, the company has begun to accelerate its transformation to the lithium battery track with Changzhou Lithium Source as the core, and may establish or acquire lithium source subsidiaries, and has successively announced a number of production capacity expansion plans.

According to statistics from Interface News, 's plan and signed projects involve a total investment of nearly 70 million yuan. Although many of the projects are jointly built with the capacity of and are divided into one and two phases, the scale of funds cannot be underestimated.

For example, since this year:

html In April, Longpan Technology plans to sign an "Investment Contract" with the Xiangcheng District People's Government of Xiangyang City, planning to invest 1.9 billion yuan to build a lithium iron phosphate positive electrode material production base project in , Xiangcheng District, . The first phase will build a project with an annual output of 50,000 tons of lithium iron phosphate and 25,000 tons of iron phosphate, with a construction period of 6 months. The second phase will additionally build projects with an annual output of 50,000 tons of lithium iron phosphate and 25,000 tons of iron phosphate. The equipment installation and commissioning will be completed within 24 months after the first phase project is put into production. htmlOn May 11, in order to integrate upstream and downstream industrial chain resources, the company plans to jointly invest 900 million yuan with Tangshan Xinfeng Lithium Co., Ltd. in Hubei Province or Tangshan City, Hebei Province to invest 30,000 tons of lithium hydroxide / lithium carbonate project.

Established several lithium source subsidiaries and expanded production capacity. Where does the money come from?

On August 28, 2021, the company announced that it plans to raise about 2.2 billion yuan in funds, and the fundraising will be completed on May 30 this year. The "shouting" project of

consumes most of the funds just raised. On June 14, the company said that 1.29 billion yuan of the raised funds will increase its capital for Changzhou Lithium Source, and Changzhou Lithium Source will increase its wholly-owned subsidiary and the company's controlling subsidiary Sichuan Lithium Source to raise 1.29 billion yuan.

It is worth noting that the company's current interest-bearing liabilities reach 3.384 billion yuan, of which short-term loans reach 2.24 billion yuan.

"attached" lithium batteries, and its market value seems to have room for imaginable space. Longpan Technology's market value rose from 2.9 billion yuan at the end of May 2020 to more than 34 billion yuan at the end of October 2021, and its current market value is about 17.7 billion yuan. The concept of

lithium battery has also made the company's private placement project sought after by institutions.

This targeted financing issuance of shares is adopted by inquiry, and its issuance price is not less than 80% of the average trading price of the company's stock in the first twenty trading days on May 10, 2022, that is, 24.13 yuan per share. After inquiring about 24 investment institutions and natural persons, the final issue price was set at 26.51 yuan per share, and the ratio of this price to the issue reserve price was 109.86%.

The targeted issuance targets were finally determined to be 15. Based on the closing price of 36.78 yuan per share on June 15, 15 investment institutions have made a floating profit of 38%.

At the same time, nearly 10,000 investors "entered" in just two months.

Longpan Technology released a message on Shanghai Stock Exchange E Interactive on May 31, 2022 that as of May 20, 2022, the number of shareholders of the company was 61,200, an increase of 9,590 from the previous period (March 31, 2022), an increase of 18.59%. However, the dispersion of chips is not a good thing for the stock price.

Can the rising momentum of Longpan Technology's stock price continue?

Multiple forces disrupt the

From an industry perspective, this track is becoming more and more inclined, and the capacity of lithium iron phosphate battery may be oversupply. There are two mainstream technical routes for

lithium batteries, divided by positive electrode materials, namely ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron carbonate batteries. The biggest difference between the two materials is that the latter does not contain cobalt and nickel. In the past, ternary lithium batteries had a market share of about 60% for many years, occupying the mainstream of the market.

However, lithium iron phosphate batteries achieved a counterattack in 2021. Data from the Power Battery Application Branch shows that the shipment of lithium iron phosphate materials in the Chinese market in 2021 reached 480,000 tons, an increase of nearly 2.5 times compared with 2020.

Among them, the top five companies in lithium iron phosphate material shipments are Hunan Yuneng, Defang Nano, Guoxuan Hi-Tech , Hubei Wanrun and Changzhou Lithium Source. The cumulative market share of the five companies is as high as 69.1%. In addition, the shipments of Rongtong Hi-Tech, Peking University pioneer, Jiangxi Sublimation ( Fulin Precision ), Anda Technology, Chongqing Terry and other companies are also relatively high. Research on

battery in China pointed out that in 2021, CATL and BYD lithium iron phosphate power batteries installed capacity will be 42.9GWh and 25.2GWh respectively. CATL and BYD, the two companies, have almost absorbed the vast majority of the leading lithium iron phosphate material companies. Among them, the largest customers such as Hunan Yuneng, Defang Nano, Changzhou Lithium Source, Jiangxi Sublimation, and Rongtong Hi-Tech are all CATL. In particular, 69.66% of the lithium iron phosphate materials of German Nano were sold to CATL last year.

is the company with the largest downstream throughput of lithium iron phosphate, CATL and BYD are also extending upstream, and through investment, long-term cooperation, investment, joint ventures and other companies, it is deeply "binding" with Hunan Yuneng, Defang Nano, Jiangxi Sublimation, Changzhou Lithium Source and other companies.

In addition, many companies in the titanium dioxide track and phosphorus chemical track are also gaining ground in this field with the help of cost advantages.

htmlOn May 29, Jinpu Titanium Industry (000545.SZ) of the titanium dioxide industry issued an announcement stating that it plans to invest 1.28 billion yuan to build integrated projects of new energy battery materials such as 200,000 tons/year battery grade iron phosphate and 200,000 tons/year lithium iron phosphate.

In fact, since 2021, a large number of titanium dioxide companies have entered the fields of iron phosphate and lithium iron phosphate materials. Titanium dioxide industry companies such as Longbai Group (002601.SZ), China Nuclear Titanium Dioxide (002145.SZ), Annada (002136.SZ), Tianyuan Co., Ltd., Anning Co., Ltd. and other titanium dioxide industry companies have planned a large number of iron phosphate and lithium iron phosphate production capacity based on the comprehensive advantages of raw material costs.

phosphorus chemical companies include Yuntianhua (600096.SH), Xingfa Group (600141.SH), Wanhua Chemical (600309.SH), Sichuan Falongpyramid (002312.SZ), Batian Co., Ltd. , Hubei Yihua, Guizhou phosphating, Sichuan Jinnuo , etc. are also continuing to increase their investment in this field. In February this year, Sichuan Falongpyramid announced that it plans to invest 12 billion yuan to build the Deyang Sichuan Falongpyramid lithium battery new energy material project and enter the field of lithium iron phosphate. Fulin Seiko (300432.SZ), an automobile manufacturing track in

, has increased its lithium iron phosphate business by acquiring Sublimation Technology.

According to incomplete statistics from Shenzhen High-tech Industrial Research Institute (GGII), the domestic lithium iron phosphate planning project in 2021 exceeds 3 million tons. Combined with the planned projects in 2022, the total planned production capacity exceeds 5.4 million tons, far exceeding the market demand in 2025. In 2021, the domestic lithium iron phosphate production capacity is close to 970,000 tons. In addition, the new production capacity released this year will be 3 million tons, which is expected to reach 3 million tons by the end of the year. The overcapacity of lithium iron phosphate materials is approaching. The track of

inclination also made it only take half a year for Huayou Cobalt Industry (603799.SH), which has a market value of 100 billion yuan, from entering the lithium iron phosphate to pressing the termination button.

html On the evening of June 14, Huayou Cobalt Industry announced that after full friendly negotiations with Huayou Holdings, the company decided to terminate the acquisition of 100% equity of Shengfan Technology through its holding subsidiary Bamo Technology. The company explained that in order to further concentrate advantageous resources, improve the efficiency of capital use, focus on the new energy lithium battery ternary materials industry chain, and accelerate the layout of upstream nickel, cobalt and lithium resources, downstream product development and capacity expansion, the company decided to terminate its layout in the field of lithium iron phosphate materials.

Nowadays, multiple forces in the lithium iron phosphate track are catching up, and the market reshuffle of will accelerate. Who will become the dark horse? brokerage analysts pointed out that companies with differentiated products and costs in the future may stand out.