Will Ningde Era Join The Army Of Car Building?

Ningde era, the leader of power battery, should also start the pace of "buying and buying".

On the evening of August 11, Ningde Times announced that it would invest in the upstream and downstream high-quality listed enterprises of domestic and foreign industrial chain. The total amount of investment this time will not exceed 19.067 billion yuan, of which the total amount of overseas investment will not exceed 2.5 billion US dollars.

As for the reasons for investment, Ningde Times said that with the promotion of global energy reform, transformation and upgrading, and the gradual improvement of environmental protection standards, the new energy vehicle and energy storage industry has developed rapidly in recent years, but there are still some shortcomings in the industrial chain, such as imperfect supporting facilities and insufficient supply of key resources. Therefore, considering the long-term strategic development, the company plans to focus on the main business and invest in the high-quality listed companies in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, so as to further strengthen the cooperation and coordination of the industrial chain, improve the efficiency of resource utilization, and enhance the market competitiveness of the company.

After the announcement was issued, it immediately triggered heated discussions in the industry, and also led to speculation about the investment target of Ningde times. The common view is that Ningde era, as the leader of power battery industry, will make efforts at the end of the supply chain. On the one hand, it can ensure the supply safety of key raw materials, on the other hand, it can also consolidate its position in the whole industry chain.

Affected by the good news, on August 12, Ningde times industrial chain individual stocks were bullish, such as leader intelligence, Greentech, rongbai technology, etc., all rose to varying degrees.

In addition to the supply chain, Ningde era's investment in the downstream has also led to speculation. It is believed that Ningde era is likely to invest in a vehicle enterprise to further coordinate the industrial chain and enhance its influence. On August 12, Cao he, President of quanlian vehicle Investment Management (Beijing) Co., Ltd., told reporters of the 21st century economic report that "when the upstream power is large enough, it will make its own cars."

Ningde times has always been closely related to vehicle enterprises. In addition to supplying batteries for vehicle enterprises, the company has established a battery company jointly with several vehicle enterprises. However, before that, Ningde times also participated in the investment of byton, a new vehicle manufacturing force. However, byton's normal operation has been unsustainable due to the explosion of thunder this year. Will Ningde era reinvest in automobile enterprises under such background? At present, the company did not provide more details.

Power battery costs remain high

In recent years, with the continuous development of new energy vehicle industry, Ningde era has gradually grown into one of the top enterprises in the field of power battery, which is also the case in the world. The Ningde Times announced to invest in high-quality enterprises in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, aiming to enhance the cooperation of the whole industrial chain.

Western securities related team analysis points out that Ningde era plans to invest 19 billion yuan in the next year. According to the important order, it has three considerations: first, to invest in upstream resources nickel cobalt lithium company to ensure the supply safety of key raw materials; second, to invest in middle reaches high barrier industry companies to ensure the consolidation of industrial chain status and discourse power; third, through investment, technology and other support Enterprises with industrial chain can realize rapid development and realize growth value together.

The investment in the upstream industrial chain has basically reached a consensus in the market. The Research Report of CICC also points out that although Ningde era has a strong cost advantage based on a complete supply chain system, at the current node, the company is also faced with two challenges: first, the industry demand stands on the eve of a sharp outbreak, and further strengthens the requirements of supply chain stability, low cost, large-scale and reliability; second, Ningde era ncm811 technology With continuous promotion, further cooperation and support are needed for material enterprises with advanced material supply capacity.

In the short term, the cost of power battery is still under further pressure. Even in Ningde era, it is necessary to further reduce the cost and increase efficiency. One of the effective ways is to invest in upstream raw material suppliers. On August 12, at the 2020 China automobile blue book forum, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde times, said frankly that at present, the cost control of power battery is still a big problem.

If the cost of power battery for the core components of electric vehicles cannot be reduced, the sales of electric vehicles will be constrained to a certain extent. This year, under the influence of multiple factors such as the macro environment downturn, the once high-speed development of new energy vehicles in China has declined significantly. If the core problems are not solved, the first mover advantage of China's new energy vehicle industry may also be lost.

The "new energy practitioners" in China will catch up with a large number of new energy practitioners in China this year. "We've finished selling the infrastructure, because we've started.".

His worries are justified. According to the data, in the first half of this year, the sales of new energy vehicles in Europe increased by 52% year-on-year, while the sales of new energy vehicles in China decreased by 44%. At the same time, Ningji was also the global champion of battery power.

In the long run, more advanced power batteries are also the driving force for the development of the industry. Ningde era is also carrying out research and development layout in various aspects, which also depends on the support of emerging suppliers. CICC predicts that equity investment can help suppliers achieve scale guarantee. "At present, the investment in the production capacity of four major materials required by a single GWH battery is about 240 million yuan, and the direct investment of 20 billion yuan can meet the demand of 82gwh. The leverage of equity investment can further enlarge the protection of this scale. "

Battery brother wants to build a car?

The investment layout in the upper reaches of the industrial chain has basically reached a consensus, but the arrangement of the downstream is controversial.

Although rarely mentioned in the research paper of securities companies, some people in the automobile industry believe that Ningde era will be likely to enter the field of car manufacturing. Cao he pointed out that Ningde era has already possessed the strength of external expansion, so it is not surprising to expand investment in vehicle enterprises downward. He analyzed that with the further development of new energy vehicles, the upstream industrial chain will move down to complete vehicles, and one or two will definitely come out in the future.

Ningde era is a hot supplier for many domestic vehicle enterprises. In the past two years, many automobile enterprises have established joint venture battery enterprises with Ningde times in order to deepen cooperation with Ningde era and ensure supply, including SAIC, Dongfeng, GAC, Geely, etc., but their main business is battery or battery cell, which is not directly related to vehicle manufacturing Contact.

In addition, Ningde times only participated in the investment of byton in 2018. At that time, byton announced that it had obtained $500 million in round B financing, in which FAW Group, tus holdings and Ningde times participated. However, this year, byton has fallen into operation difficulties, and the "car making road" of Ningde era has come to an abrupt end.

It has long been speculated in the industry that power battery enterprises "cross-border" car manufacturing. Previously, Zhang Tianren, founder and chairman of Tianneng group, said in an interview with the media that new energy vehicles are final products, and batteries work closely with them, and they may consider stepping into the field of new energy vehicles in the future.

Some analysts believe that with the increasingly thin profits of power battery enterprises, in the case of further squeezing the profit space of upstream and downstream enterprises, they will consider making their own cars to relieve the pressure. Only by tightly binding with the vehicle enterprises can the power battery enterprises win the first chance.

However, car making and power battery R & D and production are totally different fields. It is not easy for enterprises to cross the border rashly. Especially, car manufacturing is a high investment and long-term industry like power battery. For power battery enterprises, it is difficult to say how much synergy can be generated in the business field in addition to guaranteeing orders for automobile investment enterprises - and Ningde era obviously has no shortage of orders.

Perhaps Ningde's battery industry is closer to the operation of the downstream industry. Zeng Yuqun also mentioned at the forum that the company should strengthen cooperation at the level of industrial chain and carry out business model innovation, extending from mineral resources, raw materials and battery manufacturing to operation services, including energy storage, battery echelon utilization, etc. "There are all kinds of modes of electricity exchange and exploration." Zeng Yuqun said.

It is worth mentioning that Ningde times was previously said to invest in the battery asset management company that Weilai automobile plans to establish. Weilai automobile is relatively perfect in the energy distribution, and has explored new operation modes such as power exchange and separation of vehicle and electricity. The purpose of the above battery asset management company is to manage the battery assets of Weilai and help Weilai strip away the ownership of vehicle and battery assets.