Chapter 420： Ningde era

At that time, in the segment of consumer electronics, ATL has been known as the world's first in the battery industry.

And the reputation of ATL's batteries is also good. For example, in Chen William's previous life around the end of 2016, Samsung in South Korea launched the Note7, and there was a case of battery explosion, and this mobile phone was sold in mainland China. , but almost no such thing occurs, the least of any region in the world.

The official reason given by Samsung is that the Note7 mobile phones sold in mainland China use different battery suppliers, and this supplier is ATL.

However, ATL companies at this time also had hidden dangers, that is, they initially introduced too much venture capital funds in order to grow rapidly and expand their scale, resulting in a very small shareholding ratio of the entrepreneurial management team.

Then when they succeeded, those investors sold their shares to a Japanese company, TDK Group, to be acquired by it in order to cash out.

Since then, ATL has become a company founded by Chinese people, managed by Chinese people, but the boss behind the scenes is a Japanese company.

This has also made their company's development encounter many difficulties. ATL, which has the name of a Japanese company, is already a foreign investment. Expanding new business in China will inevitably be handicapped.

The most important thing is that just this year, Huaguo began to support new energy vehicles, and at this time, the new energy bus market in Huaguo has begun to take shape.

However, due to national regulations, wholly foreign-owned enterprises cannot produce power batteries!

So just recently, Zeng Yuqun has been preparing to spin off the power battery business of ATL, and lead them to form a new company, separate from the parent company, and start a new business.

This company, Zeng Yuqun is going to establish in his hometown - Ningde, Min Province, is the Ningde era that was very famous in Chen William's previous life - Ningde era new energy technology, focusing on making power batteries for electric vehicles.

In a previous life, William Chen had a friend who traded stocks at that time, and he was most interested in the new energy sector. He talked about the Ningde era stock all day long. Therefore, William Chen still has some understanding of the ins and outs of this future giant in the battery industry. In this Zeng Yuqun was about to leave ATL, so he had been contacted by someone before to invest in his new company, Ningde Times.

It's just that Huaxia Future Capital encountered some difficulties when contacting Zeng Yuqun.

The main reason is that now Zeng Yuqun has learned the lessons of ATL's acquisition. He is not only very cautious about accepting investment, but also to allow the Genesis team to maintain absolute control of the Ningde era, and it is even more necessary that the Ningde era company has Chinese capital. In the background, we are very vigilant about foreign shareholding.

And Huaxia Future Capital, in essence, is from a foreign-funded background, which has a very big disadvantage in this type of investment.

Therefore, when William Chen came to the Shenzhen market this time, he hoped to meet Zeng Yuqun to see if he could persuade him to agree to his investment.

In fact, Zeng Yuqun is also very entangled about Chen William's investment intentions, because on the one hand, Chen William is too famous. If he invests, after the development of the Ningde era, there is no need to think too much about it. The problem of investment is now, and his investment reputation has always been very good, not to mention that he will be acquired by others like ATL.

In addition, William Chen is currently the most well-known leading company in electric vehicles, the largest shareholder of Tesla, so if we can have William Chen's shareholding, CATL will be able to get Tesla's battery orders from him. .

In the development of ATL, Zeng Yuqun deeply felt what kind of help it would bring to the company's development by becoming a member of the supply chain of industry leaders such as Apple and Tesla.

But the current reality is like this. Huaguo has begun to vigorously support the new energy industry. Zeng Yuqun can see that the take-off of the domestic electric vehicle market is about to start. Faced with this outlet, he naturally hopes that the Ningde era can take off.

However, in terms of policy, it is obvious that the Chinese local enterprises are the most supportive. Therefore, Zeng Yuqun must maintain the premise of the Chinese capital background in the Ningde era, but the introduction of Chen William's investment was good at first, but later, After the IPO of the Ningde era, it is difficult to guarantee that he can keep control of the company, which is also the biggest problem he is struggling with.

In fact, the problem that Zeng Yuqun was struggling with is difficult for the people of Huaxia Future Capital to solve, because they cannot change the fact that the Future Group is a wholly-owned enterprise of Chen William and is itself a foreign capital.

But for Chen William, it is easier for him to solve this problem.

Just as he used Fan Bingbing's Meishen Film and Television Investment and Yang Mi's Wei Mi Investment to invest in the film and television industry, which also has restrictions on foreign investment, Chen William can also use relevant Huaguo background investment companies to complete the investment. Investment in the Ningde era.

And the so-called Chinese background does not mean that it cannot have any foreign capital, but the company cannot be a wholly foreign-owned enterprise, otherwise, these companies will not be able to raise funds from the US stock IPO.

Therefore, after arriving in the Shenzhen market, Chen William went to meet Zeng Yuqun in person, and without much effort, he persuaded the other party to accept his investment.

The plan provided by William Chen has been used in his previous investments. First, Huaxia Future Capital will only participate in the financing of this seed round. For subsequent investments, William Chen will come through an investment company with a Chinese background. conduct.

The second is to sign an agreement during the investment to ensure Zeng Yuqun's operational control over CATL, and to support CATL in writing to use the AB share structure to maintain management's control in future IPOs.

Thirdly, Chen William will match the cooperation between CATL and Tesla. On the premise that the battery quality is guaranteed, CATL will have a higher priority for cooperation.

Through these commitments, William Chen let Zeng Yuqun's worries all be relieved, and finally decided that Huaxia Future Capital would invest US$20 million at a post-investment valuation of US$100 million and hold 20% of the shares of CATL.

At the same time, Zeng Yuqun also made up his mind to separate from ATL with his team, and prepare to go to Ningde in Min Province to start a business again and create a new energy technology company of Ningde Times.

With the technical accumulation of batteries in ATL, as well as its own research and development team, and the financial support provided by Chen William, CATL has had a good foundation since its establishment. Chen William also believes that this time In the era of Ningde, there will be a smoother development process.