Behind the wave of car companies landing A shares: pattern of change, transformation is not easy

Car makers have shown a never-before-seen hunger for landing on A-shares so far this year.

(Image source: Car Fiction/Photo)

Wen|Car Fiction? Lime

October 20, according to the Shenzhen Bureau of Securities website released "Haitong Securities on China Evergrande New Energy Automobile Group Co., Ltd. initial public offering and listed on the counseling information for the record," shows that Evergrande Automobile has been accepted by the Haitong Securities listed counseling, and has been in the Shenzhen Bureau of Securities on September 22 for the counseling record. This also means that Evergrande Auto is only one step away from returning to the A-share market.

Just three days ago (October 17), in the distance from the submission of the GEM IPO application and acceptance of only the fourth day, Dongfeng Motor Group Co. The previous record holder - Ant Group's application for a listing on the GEM took five days from filing the application to the inquiry***.

According to the "Shenzhen Stock Exchange GEM stock issuance and listing audit rules", for the first issuance of stock listing applications, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange issuance and listing audit organization from the date of acceptance of 20 working days, through the sponsor to the issuer to put forward the first round of audit inquiries.

If you count Weimar, which has already filed with the Shanghai Securities Regulatory Commission on Oct. 13 to formally launch its pre-listing counseling on the KEM board, as well as Geely Automobile, which applied for an IPO on the board (and has already passed the meeting), and Sky Motors, which has just completed its new round of financing and is preparing for an IPO, you can see that the SZSE's IPO review rules have been in place for some time now. In recent times, there has been a steady stream of news related to IPO applications by vehicle manufacturers.

It's understandable that the new car makers are scrambling for IPOs due to their weak fundamentals, but what are the considerations behind the return to A-shares of traditional car makers (Geely, Dongfeng) and Evergrande Automobile, which are already successfully listed in Hong Kong stocks?

Industrial pattern of huge changes, accelerated electrification, intelligent transformation

Enterprises seeking IPO, the most essential reason is to seek a sound financing channels. However, if you look at the use of the funds raised, it is not difficult to find that behind the "search for money", the transition to the new energy automotive market has become the main reason for a number of automotive enterprises to log on (return) to the A-share market.

Looking at the prospectus submitted by Geely and Dongfeng Group, it is not difficult to see that they are seeking to log on to the A-share market out of the need for funds.

According to the prospectus of the Dongfeng Group, the planned financing amount of 21.033 billion yuan on the GEM, a new record for IPO companies on the GEM. As for the use of funds, the prospectus shows, for this financing set up a new brand of high-end new energy passenger cars, a new generation of automobiles and forward-looking technology development, as well as to supplement the operating capital of three major directions. Among them, will be used in its high-end new energy vehicle project on the funds will be as high as 11 billion yuan, accounting for 52% of the total amount raised.

Also according to Geely's prospectus, it plans to raise 20 billion yuan this time. Among them, 8 billion yuan and 3 billion yuan will be used for two research and development projects, such as the new model product development project and the forward-looking technology research and development project, respectively.

No coincidence, Evergrande Automobile in the official announcement on September 25 to start the return of the A shares of the announcement also said that the plan will be about 70% of the funds raised will be invested in new energy vehicle project research and development, production and marketing network construction projects.

How much money does it cost to open a new energy vehicle front no one can give an accurate figure, but through the experience of the new car-making forces, at least now it seems that 20 billion yuan is far from enough. Although the traditional car enterprises in the car qualification, factory construction, etc. without repeated investment, but in pure electric vehicle platform architecture research and development, new marketing model channels, etc., compared with the new car-making forces, there is no advantage. Not to mention the R&D investment in the field of intelligent vehicles (software, autonomous driving, etc.).

While the absolute sales figures from the point of view of the automobile consumer market, the traditional fuel model dominant position is still stable as a rock. But from a trend point of view, the growth momentum of new energy vehicles has to be said to have exceeded previous predictions.

According to the latest sales data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), in September, the production and sales of new energy vehicles amounted to 136,000 and 138,000 respectively, up 48.0% and 67.7% year-on-year, and accounted for 5.39% and 5.38% of the total auto sales in the month. Compared with the same period last year, they increased by 1.37% and 1.86%, respectively.

(Image source: Car Fiction/Photo)

In addition, in addition to the traditional car companies have begun to speed up the electricity, Azure, Xiaopeng Automobile, Ideal Automobile and a number of other new car-making forces have gradually gained a foothold in the market and gained a certain number of consumer recognition. Ideal car from 0 to delivery of 20,000 units, is only a short 10 months. It is important to know that Ideal ONE is a medium-sized SUV priced at more than 300,000 yuan, and Xiaopeng Automobile ushered in the launch of the 10,000th P7 model on October 20, which set the record for the fastest production of a single model among the new car-making forces. It can be seen that the market's acceptance of the new car-making forces has far exceeded earlier market expectations.

In this context, accelerating the electrification and intelligent transformation layout has logically become the **** the same forward direction of the major car companies. At the same time, how to solve the huge demand for research and development funds has also become one of the core issues facing the *** with.

The transformation of automobile enterprises, in addition to money what is still missing

Whether it is to accept the financing of investors, or publicly apply for an IPO, for the automobile enterprises, these can only solve the problem of capital in the transformation process. For the transformation process, in addition to money, more critical in the establishment of the core software talent team.

With the traditional car corresponding to the different talents needed, the industry to electrification, intelligent transformation today, software talent has become the automotive field ranked first in the scarcity of talent.

As we all know, the traditional fuel engine era for a new car, the main core point focuses on the three major components: engine, chassis, body. But in the era of intelligent vehicles, the traditional three major components are only the basis of a model, vehicle computing power has become the core key.

(Image source: Car Fiction/photo)

Unlike the traditional model update cycle, which is measured in "years", in the context of electrification and intelligentization, the update cycle of the new-age electric smart car has been compressed to "months" as a unit in fact. The new era of electric smart cars has in fact compressed the upgrade cycle to a unit of "month". In the case of Azure and Xiaopeng cars, for example, their updates and upgrades were completed through OTA as many as eight times in the past 2019.

For car owners, today's car is not just a mere transportation tool, but a small partner that can witness its growth by itself. If traditional fuel cars are compared to the "brick machine" of the 2G era, then today's electrified smart cars are smartphones represented by Apple and Huawei.

Everyone is familiar with smartphones. Although it's still essentially a cell phone, it's not just for the basic functions of making phone calls and sending text messages, which is why people are buying them. Of course, this change has challenged the previous car-making process. When the traditional fuel car on the "three big" is no longer the core point of the vehicle, it also means that the proportion of talent behind the structure of the qualitative change has also occurred.

Compared with the traditional body, chassis engineers, etc., nowadays, OEMs have a more urgent need for software engineers.

As early as last year, the Volkswagen Group announced that it would invest 7 billion euros (about 54.84 billion yuan) to set up a software development team (Car. Software), and publicized the expansion of the team's size to 5,000 people within five years. However, to achieve this goal is not easy, the biggest problem is that the entire EU IT field talent gap of 250,000 people. According to research data published by the German Association for Information Technology and Communication New Media, there are currently nearly 60,000 job vacancies in the German IT industry alone, with an average vacancy time of 143 days. So it's no surprise that the Volkswagen Group is throwing a lot of money at building a software team.

Thinking, conceptual change is important

For traditional car companies, although in the hands of the new car-making forces can not compete with the resources and advantages. But through the market has gradually stood firmly in the head of several new car-making forces it is not difficult to see, compared with the traditional car-making that set, the realization of the Internet thinking and a new car-making concept of the conversion is more important.

Whether it is in the vehicle function innovation, or in the marketing field of the user's "favor", the new car-making forces to create a series of new models have set a model for traditional car companies.

To this day, there are still many traditional car companies will be cell phone to open the door, on the line an owner APP as an important selling point of the vehicle to shout everywhere, it is not difficult to see, the vast majority of traditional car companies old people on the understanding of the Internet thinking is still only stuck on the surface.

(Image source: Car Fiction/photo)

Tesla, though criticized by the outside world for its rough workmanship and simple interior, still can't stop its rapid growth in the terminal market. In this, the product itself is no longer the only dimension that affects its users to make a purchase decision, in its products behind the innovative technology (such as autopilot, etc.) to attract a large number of loyal fans. Similarly, Azera, which is priced at 400,000-500,000 RMB, has also gained a large number of die-hard fans with its service that pampers them at all costs. Even in Azera's low moments, owners spontaneously raised money to help it advertise.

Compared with some traditional car companies, some of them have had to apologize for the dishonorable behavior of some of their dealers in the after-sales service environment, which "pits and hoodwinks" car owners.

Chinese cars, after more than 60 years of development, have never been as close as they are today to approaching or even overtaking foreign brands. In fact, judging from the data, Chinese auto brands have already achieved partial overtaking at the sales level in the comparison of models in some price ranges.

With the advent of a new round of IPO trend, it means that the whole industry will also usher in a new round of innovation climax in the process of electrification and intelligent transformation. Of course, as mentioned earlier, simply having money is not the key to solving the problem, the key core point of the problem is: people.

This article comes from the author of the automobile home car, does not represent the views of the automobile home position.