As the wave of billions in share unlocking sweeps through, the photovoltaic leader, Canadian Solar, has once again become the focus of market attention. Data from "Kan Jing Zhi Shu" shows that the unlocked shares of Canadian Solar account for 25.31% of the total share capital, with a market value as high as 10.221 billion yuan. Although Canadian Solar's stock performance has not been smooth since its listing, the successful IPO undoubtedly brought a capital feast for early investors such as BYD and CDH Investments.

The huge unlocking places Canadian Solar once again under the "spotlight".

On June 11th, according to data from "Kan Jing Zhi Shu", Canadian Solar's first issuance of restricted shares was unlocked and listed. The total number of unlocked shares will reach 933 million, accounting for 25.31% of Canadian Solar's total share capital, with a total unlocking market value of 10.221 billion yuan. After this unlocking, Canadian Solar still has 2.306 billion restricted shares, accounting for 62.53% of the total share capital.

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Perhaps affected by this news, on June 11th, Canadian Solar's stock price was under severe pressure. By the end of the trading day, the stock price fell to 10.95 yuan per share, with a daily decline of 5.36%, and the stock price reached a new low since its listing.

Looking at the shareholders involved in this unlocking, it can be found that there are many venture capital funds among these shareholders. In addition to the famous private equity fund CDH Investments, there are Spring Mountain Capital, Yuanhe Zhongyuan, and CICC Yingrun, as well as the electric car giant BYD.

Although Canadian Solar's stock performance has been sluggish since its listing, compared with the shareholding price of venture capital shareholders, Canadian Solar's IPO still "fed" a group of investors.

BYD's floating profit is 350%.

On June 11th, the photovoltaic leader Canadian Solar ushered in a huge unlocking.

Data from "Kan Jing Zhi Shu" shows that Canadian Solar's unlocked shares this time are part of the first public issuance of restricted shares and strategic allocation of restricted shares, totaling about 933 million, of which the first issuance strategic allocation shares are 163 million, and the first issuance restricted shares are 771 million, accounting for 25.31% of the company's total share capital.

Of course, Canadian Solar's billion-dollar unlocking has also attracted market attention to the venture capital institutions behind it.Data shows that Ats has a total of 31 shareholders whose shares are being unlocked this time, including 16 strategic placement shareholders and 15 initial offering limited sale shareholders. Among the 15 initial offering limited sale shareholders, 12 are from the first equity transfer of Ats in September 2020.

At that time, Ats, which was listed on the NASDAQ in the United States, was planning to go public on the A-share market. For this reason, Ats introduced 12 new external shareholders for the first time.

These 12 investors are quite dazzling. In addition to the participation of many venture capital institutions such as Beta Metric, Xiamen Zhongjin Yingrun, Shenzhen Chuangqi Kaiying, Suzhou Qingshan Bosi, Chunshan Pujiang (Shanghai), Wuxi Yuanhe Zhongyuan, Nanjing Huashan Ruizhi, Suzhou Huilun Venture Capital, and others, the electric car giant BYD also participated in the equity transfer of Ats.

The successful listing of Ats also brought a lot of "floating profits" to a group of venture capital institutions.

Specifically, when Ats conducted its first equity transfer in 2020, BYD obtained 80.943 million shares at a price of 19.8 million yuan, and BYD has maintained this share capital quantity ever since. If calculated based on today's closing price, BYD's investment return rate in Ats is nearly 350%.

In addition to the much-anticipated BYD, there is also the famous venture capital institution "CDH Investments" hidden behind Ats. According to the prospectus, the largest external shareholder of Ats - Beta Metric is the holding platform of CDH Investments.

Before the IPO, CDH Investments acquired 164 million shares of Ats at a price of $58.4889 million, and at the same time, Ren Yiqiao, the Managing Director of CDH Investments, served as a director of Ats.

Calculated based on today's closing price, the market value of Ats held by it is about 1.789 billion yuan. Converted at an exchange rate of 7.25, CDH Investments has obtained a floating profit of 1.365 billion yuan after investing in Ats, with an investment return rate exceeding 320%.

Performance is not satisfactory

Despite the "blessing" of many capitals, Ats's journey to the A-share market is still full of twists and turns.It is understood that the company's IPO application was accepted in June 2021, passed the review in December 2021, and the enterprise submitted registration in January 2022. By June 2022, due to the expiration of financial materials, the review was suspended.

It was not until February 2023 that Ats announced the latest IPO prospectus, resuming the listing on the STAR Market. On June 9th of that year, Ats finally "realized its dream". It officially went public on the STAR Market with an issue price of 11.10 yuan per share, raising nearly 6.9 billion yuan.

Since returning to A-shares, Ats' stock price once soared to 20.79 yuan, but then it began to enter a downward channel, with the bottom continuously sinking. As of the closing on June 11th, Ats' stock price had already broken through the issue price, falling to 10.95 yuan per share, indicating that the return on investment in Ats since its listing has been minimal.

Of course, the lack of stock price improvement may be related to Ats' unsatisfactory performance.

Ats, which has only been listed for a year, achieved a revenue of 12.19 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 13.67% compared to 14.12 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2022. The net profit attributable to the parent company for the quarter was only 630 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of up to 93.1% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022.

In the first quarter of this year, the company's revenue and net profit continued to decline. The operating income was 9.597 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 18.88%; the net profit attributable to the parent company was 579 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 36.98%.

It is worth noting that under the intensification of industry competition, Ats is still heavily investing.

In July 2023, it disclosed an expansion announcement stating that it plans to invest in the construction of a photovoltaic new energy full industry chain project in Hohhot City. Among them, the first phase of the project invested about 14 billion yuan, confirming the specific landing project as an annual production of 20GW monocrystalline pulling rods, 40GW monocrystalline crucible projects, and an annual production of 10GW slicing + 10GW battery + 5GW components + 5GW new material projects.

At the end of October of the same year, Ats announced the launch of the Ats U.S. annual production of 5GW high-efficiency N-type battery chip project plan, expected to be put into production by the end of 2025, with an estimated total investment of about 839 million US dollars.

After entering 2024, Ats' expansion momentum remains "fierce". On the evening of February 26th, Ats announced that the company plans to give priority to the layout of the photovoltaic new energy industry park in Lianshui County, Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province, with a total planned investment of 9.63 billion yuan, to be constructed in three phases.It is worth mentioning that faced with declining performance, low stock prices, and a high proportion of share unlocking issues, the company, Canadian Solar, has chosen to take action to "protect the stock."

In February of this year, Canadian Solar proposed to repurchase no less than 500 million yuan and no more than 1 billion yuan of the company's shares within a year, with a repurchase price not exceeding 20.12 yuan per share.

According to the repurchase announcement released by Canadian Solar on June 3, as of May 31, 2024, the company had accumulated 5.5 million shares through the Shanghai Stock Exchange trading system using a centralized bidding transaction method, accounting for 0.15% of the company's total share capital. That is to say, Canadian Solar has currently spent only 65 million yuan on share repurchase, and its repurchase "ammunition" is still sufficient.

"Stubborn" Founder

The characteristics of a company ultimately reflect the traits of its founder, which is very evident in Canadian Solar.

It is understood that the founder of Canadian Solar, Xiaohu Qu, was born in Beijing, and both of his parents are professors at Tsinghua University. He attended Tsinghua Kindergarten, Tsinghua Affiliated Primary School, Tsinghua Affiliated Middle School, and went all the way to the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University. The school motto "Self-improvement, the carrying virtue" has benefited him for a lifetime.

After graduating from the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University, Xiaohu Qu went to Canada to study and successively obtained a master's degree in solid-state physics from the University of Manitoba and a doctorate in semiconductor material science from the University of Toronto. For most of his study and work, he has been engaged in the research of semiconductor materials and semiconductor photovoltaic characteristics, and has a high level of expertise in the theory and practice of solar power generation.

In 2001, the division led by Xiaohu Qu received a small car solar charger order from the German Volkswagen company. Considering the full utilization of domestic cost advantages and many other factors, Xiaohu Qu decided to bring this order of more than 2 million US dollars back to his hometown, Changshu. In the same year, he established the first domestic company in Changshu City, Jiangsu Province - Canadian Solar Photovoltaic Electronics (Changshu) Co., Ltd.

Thanks to the order from Volkswagen. In 2002, the 100,000 sets of solar charger products produced by Xiaohu Qu brought him a profit of 3 million yuan, thus earning his first pot of gold in life. During this period, Shi Zhengrong founded Wuxi Suntech, and Peng Xiaofeng would establish Jiangxi Seraphim four years later.

Although he has a longer career, compared to the well-known figures in the capital market in recent years, such as Li Zhen Guo of Longi, Li Xian De of Jinko Energy, and Gao Ji Fan of Trina Solar, Xiaohu Qu is relatively low-key.As he said, "Canadian Solar doesn't want to be the boss, it just wants to be the last solar company to die." It is precisely this personality trait that determines Canadian Solar's steady and cautious nature.

However, being steady to a certain extent also reflects "stubbornness".

It is well known that the photovoltaic industry has always had disputes over technological routes. Whether it was the previous dispute between thin film and crystalline silicon, or the current dispute between polycrystalline and monocrystalline, almost every technological route dispute ends with changes in corporate economic benefits. Therefore, photovoltaic companies need to continuously invest to maintain competitiveness.

It is understood that in 2017, with Longi's full-scale implementation of diamond wire cutting technology and the expansion of monocrystalline scale, including policy inclinations, most companies in the photovoltaic industry also turned to the monocrystalline route starting from 2017.

However, as one of the "Five Swordsmen of Photovoltaics," Canadian Solar still insists on improving the conversion efficiency of polycrystalline silicon solar cells instead of turning to the monocrystalline route.

In 2018, when the market collectively "looked down" on polycrystalline silicon cells, Dr. Shawn Qu responded, "Wait for our polycrystalline to fake a corpse and scare you."

Affected by this, Canadian Solar's shipments grew slightly slower than the industry. According to data from Infolink, in 2011, when Canadian Solar entered the top five global photovoltaic module manufacturers, Jinko Energy and Longi were still "little brothers."

However, by 2022, the top five global photovoltaic module shipment manufacturers were Longi Green Energy, Jinko Energy, Trina Solar, JA Solar, and Canadian Solar. Among them, the annual shipments of the top four manufacturers have reached the level of 40GW, while Canadian Solar's annual module shipment is 21.1GW, and a clear gap has been created.

Overall, Dr. Shawn Qu's low-key and steady approach has injected a corporate spirit into Canadian Solar that does not follow the trend and does not blindly expand. However, in the context of fierce competition among photovoltaic companies, this spirit is both an advantage for Canadian Solar's steady development and a challenge it may face in the intense market competition.