Yangcheng Evening News reporter Ding Ling
The 71-year-old Wang Shi started the "second spring" of entrepreneurship after he handed over the management rights of Vanke for five years.
On April 8, the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange showed that Destone Acquisition Corp. (Chinese name: Shenshi Acquisition Enterprise Co., Ltd., hereinafter referred to as Shenshi Acquisition), a special-purpose acquisition company jointly initiated by Wang Shi, the founder of Vanke Group, officially submitted a listing application. .
The company management team is quite luxurious
According to the prospectus, the Deep Stone Acquisition is a special purpose acquisition company newly incorporated as a Cayman Islands exempted limited company for the purpose of merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar with one or more enterprises. Business combination, Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "SPAC").
According to the prospectus, Deep Stone’s acquisition will focus on two main investment lines in the future, including green technology and environmentally friendly consumer goods and services, and green services focus on electric vehicles and real estate technology.
Judging from the list of executives acquired by Deep Stone, Wang Shi's management team for the company established this time can be described as quite luxurious.
According to the prospectus, the promoters of Shenshi's acquisition of enterprises are Wang Shi and Asia Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd. ("Asia Investment Capital").
Among them, Wang Shi is the chairman, Liu Erfei is the director and chief executive officer, Ding Daoyi is the director, Zhang Tian is the director and chief financial officer, Zhou Mo is the chief operating officer, and She Shiying is the chief investment officer.
According to the data, Liu Erfei graduated from Harvard Business School with a master's degree in business administration, and holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Brandeis University.
He has worked in many European and American investment banks such as Merrill Lynch, Orient Huijia, Morgan, Goldman Sachs Smith Barney and Rothschild; he has taken over more than ten overseas financing and listing of large-cap stocks of state-owned enterprises, including China Telecom, China Mobile, China Southern Airlines, etc. .
In 2016, Liu Erfei started a business and established Asia Investment Capital, focusing on investment and cross-border mergers and acquisitions in the Greater China and Southeast Asian markets. Currently, the assets under management exceed US$1.5 billion.
Zhang Tian joined the Deep Stone Group founded by Wang Shi in 2017 and has been a member of the senior management team and the board of directors of its joint ventures since then. He worked at Morgan Stanley Securities (China) investment bank from July 2015 to August 2017 department.
In addition, Sohu founder Zhang Chaoyang, Vanke independent directors Liu Shuwei and Lin Qianli serve as independent non-executive directors of the company.
Regarding the management team, Deep Stone's acquisition company stated confidently in the prospectus: "With the extensive and deep network of contacts established by the team in key global industries, it is expected to use the team's capabilities to discover, acquire and operate the public market. A long-term successful business that delivers solid returns to shareholders.”
Does not love real estate and prefers new energy
It should be said that since the date of Shenshi's acquisition and establishment, its development has attracted widespread market attention, not only because of the luxurious lineup of the company's executives, but also because of Wang Shi's change in real estate and preference for new energy.
Speaking of Wang Shi, many people immediately think of the identity of "Vanke Real Estate Chairman", but after resigning from this position in 2017, Wang Shi has mostly appeared in the public eye with mountain climbing, rowing and charity activities. The real estate attributes of the company have also weakened, and instead, they are more in love with the new energy field that has been hot in recent times.
The prospectus shows that Deep Stone's acquisition of companies in the green technology, environmentally friendly consumer goods and services fields in the "dual-carbon economy" field will be the key acquisition targets in the future, and these target companies may be headquartered in the Asia-Pacific region or have huge A place for growth potential.
The Deep Stone Acquisition also revealed that the work of identifying potential special purpose acquisition companies' M&A targets will not be limited to a particular industry, sector or geographic region.
However, it intends to focus on the following two main lines of investment: green technology, which contributes to the transition to a net zero carbon economy, including but not limited to urban technology, smart cities, real estate technology, electric vehicles (EV), clean energy, Internet of Things ( IoT), automation, smart manufacturing, smart construction, and carbon capture, application and storage (CCUS); environmentally friendly consumer goods and services that can adapt to growing awareness of sustainable consumption and enhance social and personal well-being, including but not limited to digital services, Fitness & Recreation, Sports Recreation, Apparel, Food & Beverage, and Home Products.
According to public reports, on May 31 last year, Wang Shi and Feng Nan, a core partner of Vanke Group and a partner of the Collaboration Center, visited BAIC Blue Valley.
According to market news, Asia Investment Capital, the second shareholder acquired by Deep Stone, participated in the US$200 million Series D financing of Xinkangzhong, a domestic one-stop automotive aftermarket service platform last September, and served as the lead party. Other co-investors include Yunlong Capital, Alibaba Group, etc.
Why choose the SPAC listing model?
It is also worth noting that, as a company that was only established in June last year, why was the Deep Stone acquisition able to sprint to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in less than a year?
According to the prospectus, as a shell company, Deep Stone Acquisition did not engage in any business.
The company had no revenue until the end of last year, and the net debt caused by expenses was about HK$3.2 million.
The SPAC listing and financing model that Wang Shi chose this time is different from the traditional IPO and "backdoor".
The purpose of the company's existence is to find a suitable target, then merge with the target company, and help the target company go public.
In short, it is to build a shell first and then acquire it.
As an emerging financing shortcut that originated in the United States, SPAC was officially introduced by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2022 and quickly attracted the entry of many capital tycoons.
So far, 12 SPACs have submitted listing application forms to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The sponsors of these SPAC companies include Wei Zhe, the former CEO of Alibaba, Li Ning, the boss of Li Ning Company, He Youlong, the son of the "gambler", and Li Zekai, the second son of Li Ka-shing.
In addition, well-known institutions such as CMB International, Primavera Capital, ABC International, Taixin Capital also participated.
The SPAC listing mechanism provides a faster and cheaper listing method for companies that are eager to go public or does not meet the traditional IPO requirements, and is also very profitable for the promoters, so it is all the rage on Wall Street in the United States.
According to data from SPAC Analytics, an American information company, 610 companies in the United States went public through SPACs last year, raising more than US$161 billion, accounting for 64% of new shares issued in the US market.
However, compared with the SPAC listing mechanism in the United States, the threshold for listing a SPAC on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange is much higher.
The Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, Chen Maobo, once said that the purpose of implementing the SPAC mechanism in Hong Kong is to increase new fundraising channels without weakening the protection of investors, and the threshold is stricter than that of US stocks.