After six days and five nights, 21 bidders made a total of 3448 bids and nearly one million people watched… The recently watched Sichuan snowway mining equity auction finally ended on May 21. The final transaction price exceeded 2 billion yuan, 597 times higher than the starting price of 3.35 million yuan, setting a rare auction record in the industry.
Jingdong bankruptcy auction platform shows that the auction object is 54.29% equity of Yajiang snowway Mining Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as snowway mining) held by Chengdu Xingneng new materials Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xingneng new materials). The transaction price of the object is 20 Fujian Septwolves Industry Co.Ltd(002029) 42 yuan, and the buyer is Tan Wei.
The auction was originally scheduled to start at 10:00 on May 16 and end at 10:00 on May 17 (except for delay). The starting price is about 3.35 million yuan, the deposit is about 335000 yuan, the single price increase range is 50000 yuan and its integral multiple, and a delayed bidding mechanism is set. Due to the anxious bidding war, the auction entered a four-day “overtime”.
However, the final winner was not the two players who had competed for many days, but no. 141243314, who suddenly joined the war at 5:00 on May 21. Prior to this, the auction price has been below 600 million yuan for nearly three days. In the last three hours before the auction, the price increase was increased to 50 million yuan, and the bidding price was finally bid up to 2 billion yuan.
The auction price exceeded the estimate, and the total transaction cost reached 3.5 billion yuan
The exploration right of delanongba lithium mine owned by snowway mining is valued at 1.279 billion yuan. In August 2016, due to the non payment of 1.279 billion yuan of the “increased exploration minerals” price of delanongba lithium and quartzite exploration rights announced by Sichuan Provincial Department of land and resources, the evaluation result has become invalid.
According to the civil ruling of Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court of Sichuan Province, taking December 31, 2018 as the benchmark date, the court entrusted the asset appraisal agency to evaluate the market value of 57.1% equity of snowway mining, which was 1.275 billion yuan. According to the appraisal results, the market value of 54.29% equity of snowway mining at that time was about 1.2 billion yuan.
In February 2020, 54.29% of the equity of snowway mining was auctioned on Jingdong bankruptcy auction platform, and the starting price at that time was 849 million yuan. The auction was suspended because outsiders raised objections to the sealing up of the subject matter.
In addition, the manager of snowway mining has publicly recruited prospective investors at least four times. In March this year, the announcement of the fourth public recruitment of intended investors disclosed by snowway mining showed that the registration base price of intended investors was 381 million yuan.
As of December 13, 2021, the amount of creditor’s rights confirmed by snowway mining is 1 billion yuan, and the amount of deferred creditor’s rights is 570 million yuan. Under the dilemma of bankruptcy liquidation and insolvency, the auction price of snowway mining equity fell again and again. The starting price was as low as 3.35 million yuan, but the final price far exceeded the market expectation of 2 billion days, and even exceeded the previous highest evaluation price.
If the transaction goes smoothly, in addition to the transaction price of 2 billion yuan, the bid winner also needs to solve the debt of 852 million yuan under the corresponding equity and the increased exploration mineral price of 694 million yuan, which means that the bid winner needs to pay a total cost of more than 3.546 billion yuan for the lithium resources under snowway mining.
lithium price increased nearly five times in one year, and lithium resources triggered multi-party bidding
In recent years, the high prospect of the new energy vehicle industry has greatly boosted the demand for lithium batteries, the gap between supply and demand of global lithium resources has been expanding, and the price of lithium has continued to rise. According to the statistics of benchmark mineral intelligence, a professional information provider in the electric vehicle industry, the price of lithium has soared 490% in the past year. In March this year, the price of battery grade lithium carbonate in the Chinese market soared to 500000 yuan / ton, while at the beginning of 2021, the price of battery grade lithium carbonate was only 60000 yuan / ton.
Data source: East Asia Qianhai Securities Research Report
At present, major mining enterprises and new energy industry chain companies around the world have accelerated the layout of upstream lithium resources. A large number of mineral rights held by snowway mining have naturally become scarce resources competed by many parties. This is also the main reason why the equity bidding of snowway mining is so fierce.
According to public information, the core assets of snowway mining are 18.53 square kilometers of exploration rights and 1.14 square kilometers of mining rights of delanongba lithium mine. According to the appraisal report of Yunnan luyuanheng Mining Right Appraisal Co., Ltd., as of June 30, 2021, the appraisal value of the detailed exploration right of delanongba lithium mine and quartzite mine owned by snowway mining is 974 million yuan.
Delanongba lithium mine is located in the northeast of Yajiang County, Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province. It is the core mining area of methylka, a world-class spodumene mine. In addition to lithium, the mining area is also rich in niobium, beryllium and tantalum.
According to the evaluation report, taking June 30, 2021 as the base date, the retained lithium resource reserve of delanongba lithium mine is 24.92 million tons, and the lithium oxide resource is 293200 tons (about 725100 tons LCE), with an average grade of 1.18%. The open-pit mining production scale of the super large lithium mine is 1 million tons / year, and the underground mining production scale is 720000 tons / year. Based on the normal production year, the annual output of lithium concentrate is 147000 tons and that of tantalum niobium concentrate is 66.78 tons.
According to the surging news reporter, due to the expiration of the exploration right of snowway mining for delanuba lithium mine, the equity of snowway mining may have some risks. The relevant announcement of public recruitment of interested investors shows that at present, snowway mining is continuing to handle the fourth reservation of exploration rights. According to the announcement, the manager does not promise to handle the transfer procedures of exploration right for the intended investors.
mysterious buyer’s identity is a mystery, market speculation or related to GCL
At present, Jingdong auction platform only released the confirmation of auction transaction, and did not disclose the specific information of the final buyer and other bidders, but the speculation and rumors about the auction participants in the market have intensified.
According to market rumors, potential enterprises that may participate in the bidding include Gcl Energy Technology Co.Ltd(002015) ( Gcl Energy Technology Co.Ltd(002015) ), Sichuan New Energy Power Company Limited(000155) ( Sichuan New Energy Power Company Limited(000155) ), Sichuan Road & Bridge Co.Ltd(600039) ( Sichuan Road & Bridge Co.Ltd(600039) ), Youngy Co.Ltd(002192) ( Youngy Co.Ltd(002192) ), Chengxin Lithium Group Co.Ltd(002240) ( Chengxin Lithium Group Co.Ltd(002240) ), Zijin Mining Group Company Limited(601899) ( Zijin Mining Group Company Limited(601899) ), etc. In addition, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) ( Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) ) participated in the last debt auction of snowway mining, so it is still possible to participate in this auction. As of press time, the above listed companies have not publicly responded to the rumors of participating in the auction.
For Tan Wei, the final buyer of the auction, the market speculates that this person may be related to GCL enterprises. The reporter learned by querying the sky eye data that only one of the 648 bosses named “Tan Wei” belongs to the mining industry classification. Dushan wanfushan Mining Co., Ltd., with this person as the legal person, has a certain relationship with Leshan GCL New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of GCL group.
However, it is impossible to confirm that the “Tan Wei” and the buyer “Tan Wei” are the same person.
On May 19, the listed company Gcl Energy Technology Co.Ltd(002015) under GCL group completed the acquisition of 99% of the creditor’s rights and 43% of the equity of snowway mining, and confirmed that relevant companies of GCL participated in the equity auction of snowway mining, hoping to obtain all the controlling rights of the company.
According to tianyancha, the largest shareholder of snowway mining is Xingneng new materials, which holds 57.1%, that is, the shares of this auction. The second largest shareholder is Chengdu chuanshang Xingneng equity investment fund center (limited partnership) holding 42.85%, and the company is a company under Gcl Energy Technology Co.Ltd(002015) partner New Hope Liuhe Co.Ltd(000876) group.
In May this year, Gcl Energy Technology Co.Ltd(002015) once publicly stated at the performance exchange meeting that “the company plans to extend to the upstream raw material lithium industry. At present, it is planning and promoting the relevant transactions of potential investment target assets to provide resource guarantee for the company’s strategy of building a global leading mobile digital energy technology operator. The company will disclose it in time according to the progress of the project.”
According to the Gcl Energy Technology Co.Ltd(002015) plan, the company will build an energy supplement network serving more than 30000 new energy vehicles in 2022, and layout the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain such as lithium mine, salt lake lithium resource development, lithium salt deep processing and retired battery echelon utilization.
For all kinds of rumors about participating in the equity auction of snowway mining, Gcl Energy Technology Co.Ltd(002015) 5 responded on the investor interaction platform on May 20, “please refer to the announcement of the company for relevant information of the company.”
At present, there are still some uncertain factors in the equity auction transaction of snowway mining. Before the full price is paid on schedule, the buyer Tan Wei may regret the auction.
Pu Lei of Shanghai Youcheng law firm told surging news reporters that the auction confirmation can only indicate that the auction is ended at this price, the deposit has entered the account of the auction sending institution, and the remaining amount needs to be settled within 7 days. If the buyer fails to pay the full price on time, the court will be deemed to regret the auction and has the right to decide to re auction. During the re auction, the original buyer shall not participate in the bidding.
According to Article 24 of the provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues concerning online judicial auction of people’s courts, after the auction is completed, the deposit paid by the buyer will not be refunded because the buyer fails to pay the price within the time limit. In this auction, the bidder needs to pay a deposit of 10% of the starting price, that is, 335000 yuan.
Source: bidding announcement
Guotai Junan Securities Co.Ltd(601211) research report points out that benefiting from the explosive growth of new energy vehicles and energy storage demand, the demand for lithium resources is expected to maintain a compound growth rate of more than 30% in the future. In 2022, the contradiction between supply and demand in the lithium industry is still prominent, and the gap between supply and demand lies in the resource side with slow production expansion. Therefore, it is expected that the lithium price will continue to operate at a high level.
According to Zheng mianping, academician of the Chinese Academy of engineering, the gap between supply and demand of lithium carbonate in China will reach 150000 tons by 2025 and further expand to 350000 tons by 2030.
Under the background of continuous tight supply and demand of lithium resources, from upstream mining enterprises and lithium material suppliers to downstream battery manufacturers and automobile enterprises, the anxiety of the whole new energy industry chain about upstream lithium resources is difficult to alleviate in the short term, and such lithium competition wars will be staged all over the world.
It is worth noting that Pilbara, an Australian lithium supplier, will hold the second lithium concentrate auction of the year on May 24. The mining enterprise has been invested and invested by industry leaders such as Ganfeng Lithium Co.Ltd(002460) , Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) and downstream cooperative enterprises include Great Wall Motor Company Limited(601633) in China and Posco and LG in South Korea. The auction price of Pilbara lithium concentrate is known as the wind vane of the global lithium concentrate price trend. The 5000 ton lithium concentrate auction is bound to cause competition from all parties.
