Although Ziguang Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'Ziguang Group') and Zhao Weiguo himself once explained to the outside world that Zhao Weiguo's resignation as chairman of the two listed companies of the Ziguang Group was due to 'too busy', the industry disputed Zhao Weiguo’s departure. Constantly.
An industry insider who declined to be named told reporters from the China Business Daily that after Zhao Weiguo personally took over the business of the two subsidiaries, he failed to make rapid achievements. Now it is a strategic shift to hand over some of the burden to Yu Yingtao.
Resignation storm
Zhao Weiguo had previously dominated a series of mergers and acquisitions in the chip industry. The skilful operation of capital made Ziguang famous. His expertise in capital operations was seen by the outside world as a 'business card' of Ziguang. The two most important listed companies of the group resigned and did not retain their seats on the board of directors. The reason for the resignation was too busy. This led to many speculations about the reasons for Zhao Weiguo’s resignation.
Some people in the industry believe that the resignation is behind Ziguang Group’s major shareholder Tsinghua Holdings, which has opinions on Zhao Weiguo’s business and strategic practices over the past few years. The industry even believes that this will be a signal that Zhao Weiguo’s control over Ziguang Guoxin and Ziguang Stocks has weakened. A publicist in Ziguang told reporters that there was no comment on the rumors. However, another Ziguang PR told the reporter: 'According to the requirements of listed companies, the chairman of a listed company may be required to attend some meetings. Zhao does not want to do it. Some business affairs resigned from his post and the focus of his business did not change. ' Zhao Weiguo also stated to the public: 'When the party secretary cannot control the affairs of the party committee secretary.'
The reporter noticed that Zhao Weiguo’s resignation was also a matter of March 2018 when Ziguang Group announced that Li Liyou had resigned from his post as the co-president of Ziguang Group and chairman of Spreadtrum for personal reasons.
Ziguang Group is a company controlled by Tsinghua Holdings. Our reporter noted that recently, the entire Tsinghua University is also carrying out personnel and personnel adjustments. Xu Jinghong has stepped down as chairman of Tsinghua Holdings, and David Dawei has taken over the chairmanship of the fifth board of directors of Tsinghua Holdings.
It is reported that this cadre adjustment is a further decision of the Central Government of Tsinghua University to carry out rectification work, and implements the decision of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on deepening the reform of state-owned enterprises. It is to implement the decision in the industry to comprehensively strengthen the leadership of the Party and the Party. 2. To build and strengthen important measures for the regulation and supervision of the industry.
M&A defeat
According to the information publicly disclosed by the Ziguang Group, its development goal is to build a 'high-tech' industrial chain from 'core to cloud'.
The "violet system" has been crazy in the chip industry's 'buy buy buy', Zhao Weiguo has thus been dubbed the 'merger madman' title. According to incomplete statistics, since 2013, 'purple system' has spent hundreds of billions of mergers and acquisitions Among the 16 companies, 11 companies involved in chip-related M&A or investment. They included privatization and acquisition of Spreadtrum Communications; acquisition of IC design company Rui Dike; and acquisition of 51% of Xinhua San, a company owned by HP.
At present, Ziguang Group’s core core companies mainly include Ziguang Zengrui, Ziguang Guoxin, and Wuhan Changjiang Storage Co., Ltd. The core cloud companies mainly include Ziguang Group, Xinhua Group, and Ziguang Western Digital Co., Ltd. Zhao Weiguo left two companies: Ziguang Group listed companies in the field of integrated circuit design and cloud computing.
Ziguang Guoxin is positioned in the Ziguang Group's memory industry segment and is an important platform for Ziguang Group's strategy from 'core' to 'cloud'. Under the leadership of Zhao Weiguo, Ziguang Guoxin has thrown a plan to increase the price by 80 billion yuan in an attempt to acquire Taiwan Nanmao Technology, a 25% stake in PowerScience, once hoped to integrate Changjiang Storage, which is under the control of another non-listed company under the Ziguang Group, but the above plans eventually ended in deficiencies.
Ziguang Group is Ziguang Group's IT information system, cloud computing, big data and other business platforms. Prior to the acquisition of Xinhua III was an acquisition completed by Ziguang under the leadership of Zhao Weiguo. Ziguang's wholly-owned subsidiary in Hong Kong, Ziguang United Information Systems Co., Ltd. had also hoped to acquire a 15% stake in Western Digital. After the abortion, it had no choice but to choose to use a joint venture company to marry Western Digital.
In addition, on the matter of mergers and acquisitions, Ziguang Group also hoped to purchase US-based memory giant Micron Technology for US$23 billion, and purchase 25% of TSMC’s shares for US$30 billion. Both of them were folded. After multiple mergers and acquisitions, Ziguang Group will shift its focus to the construction of the domestic storage industry.
Compared with the previous aggressive mergers and acquisitions, Ziguang's strategy has also changed. Zhao Weiguo said in an interview with China Securities Journal that 'Ziguang Group has completed its industrial layout and will transition from mergers and acquisitions to independent research and development.'
At the same time, the “violet system” has already listed many listed companies on the capital market and all are generous. At the end of 2017, Ziguang Holding successively issued the SMIC and Legend Holdings. Ziguang Group, Ziguang Communication, Tibet Chunhua , Tibet Telecom, Jian Kun Investment and other 'violet light' listed companies in the capital market has also continued action.
Mode Dispute
From the aggressive mergers and acquisitions to the use of capital to nurture the failure of the development of the chip industry, it also caused the outside world to question the 'violet pattern'. IT independent commentator Sun Yongjie believes that the current so-called independent innovation and cloud computing power of Ziguang is just Zhao Weiguo. The passive choice after the failure of the “violet pattern”, which is dominated by merger and acquisition strategies, may be the real reason why Zhao Weiguo resigned from the chairman of Ziguang and ceased to take any position in the listed company.
In an interview with this reporter, a veteran of the semiconductor industry also expressed doubts about Zhao Weiguo's development model of the chip industry: 'From the merger theory, wool theory (capital investment company, the company takes money to do industry, capital to the market to arbitrage This process is described as the Internet thinking that wool is in pigs. Using capital to nurture the development of the chip industry. Is it really feasible to collaborate with local governments to obtain funds?” He believes that Ziguang has obtained funding for projects around the country. The difficulty is high. If the semiconductor can be immediately profitable, it is still possible to develop. 'But if there is a loss, will Ziguang be able to withstand the 10-year cold bench?' In addition, Ziguang’s projects in Nanjing and Chengdu must duplicate the Wuhan Yangtze River storage model. It is still unknown when Wuhan Yangtze River Storage is profitable.
Some industry insiders believe that for Violet can not be killed by stick, through mergers, capital market operations quickly exchange for market and technology, Violet is also seen as a new way to explore the development of the semiconductor industry, its strength is the application and chip manufacturing Together, this may be a new road. In addition, Zhao Weiguo’s lofty ideals and determination for the semiconductor industry are also unmatched by semiconductor companies such as SMIC and Hua Hong.
'Through M&A standing on the shoulders of giants is not a bad idea.' But Sun Yongjie also believes that Ziguang’s M&A is too radical, although it acquired the acquisition of Spreadtrum, RDA, Hewlett-Packard’s corporate business in China, but in the acquisition of U.S. Micron Technology, Western Digital , Taiwan Nanmao Technology and other key mergers and acquisitions have no results, and Micron Technology these companies because of the master core technology is seen as an important chip between the game between the country and the country.
It is worth noting that Guo Gaohang, an analyst at Gabbana Consulting Semiconductor, told this reporter that the trade friction between China and the United States has a limited impact on China's semiconductor industry. However, he believes that from a macro perspective, what is reflected in the US trade list is the Chinese technology. Concerns about the rapid rise of the industry, especially the rise of China's integrated circuit industry.
As of now, Ziguang Group's layout in terms of cloud computing is also a frequent action. Ziguang Group stated that it will focus on expanding the global business of cloud services in the future. Ziguang Stock has established Ying Tao as the new chairman to push the implementation of Ziguang Group's 'cloud service' strategy. The integration of Ziyun Group's 'cloud network' strategy, which is also considered by the industry as a strategic shift of Ziguang.