Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, was exposed to participate in the power battery company Funeng Technology.
On May 26th local time, according to Reuters, Daimler Group plans to participate in Funeng Technology (Ganzhou) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Funeng Technology”) ) An ongoing public offering of 3.437 billion yuan to ensure that Funeng Technology can steadily supply batteries for electric vehicles produced by Daimler.
Reuters said people familiar with the matter disclosed that it is unclear the specific amount of investment that Daimler may participate in because the investment plan has not yet been finalized and may change.
Regarding Daimler ’s possible participation in the company ’s fundraising, Reuters said Daimler declined to comment. The surging news reporter called the information disclosure phone number in the Prospectus of Funeng Technology, and the person in charge responded that he had not received relevant information.
Funeng Technology Prospectus shows that the company was established by a joint venture between Foneng and Manyuan Construction. On December 3, 2009, Foneng and Manyuan Construction signed a “joint venture agreement on the establishment of a new energy Sino-foreign joint venture”, stipulating the establishment of Foneng is limited, with a registered capital of RMB 250 million, of which The “new lithium manganate material and its power lithium-ion battery” patent and proprietary technology license use rights are invested at RMB 175 million, accounting for 70% of the total registered capital, and Manyuan Construction invested RMB 75 million in cash, accounting for the registration 30% of total capital. Foneng Technology focuses on the research, development, production and sales of lithium-ion power batteries and vehicle battery systems for new energy vehicles, and provides overall power battery solutions for new energy vehicle manufacturers. The installed capacity of Funeng technology products ranked seventh in the country in 2017 and fifth in 2018.
Funeng Science and Technology Board listing request was accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange on September 16, 2019, and successfully registered on the Science and Technology Board on May 20. For this listing, Funeng Technology plans to raise about 3.437 billion yuan for a lithium-ion power battery project (Funeng Zhenjiang Phase III Project) with an annual output of 8GWh stores and supplementary operating capital projects.
Last year, Funen Technology and Daimler reached an agreement that Funen Technology will provide Daimler with lithium-ion batteries. Funen Technology also said it is planning to establish a factory in Germany.
Recently, like global car companies, Daimler Group is also planning to increase the output of its electric vehicles. At present, the batteries assembled by Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz EQC are mainly purchased from the Ningde era.
It is worth mentioning that car companies seem to be keen to establish deeper relationships with battery manufacturers to manage supply through investment companies or long-term contracts.
Previously, Reuters also reported that Volkswagen is considering acquiring a 20% stake in another battery manufacturer, Guoxuan Hi-Tech (002074). On May 20, Guoxuan Hi-Tech also announced that the company is planning to transfer equity, and plans to transfer part of its company equity to strategic investors and involves other voting rights arrangements, which may lead to the company ’s largest shareholder and actual change. The counterparty of this transaction belongs to the manufacturing industry, and the matter still involves the prior approval of the relevant departments. At the same time, Guoxuan High-tech suspended trading on the morning of May 20, 2020, and said that the suspension is expected to not exceed 5 trading days. As of now, Guoxuan Hi-Tech has not announced the details of the transaction, and the stock is still in suspension.