The auto company's "self-promotion" has now undergone a strange reversal: SAIC abandoned its son in the middle, and BAIC got it back.

[car home? Industry] The twists and turns of the car company's equity acquisition suddenly showed a dramatic reversal. At noon on July 20, SAIC announced that it would terminate the acquisition of shares in the automobile company. In the afternoon, UCAR officially announced that it planned to transfer its 443 million shares of CAR Inc to BAIC at a price of HK$ 365,438+0 per share, with a maximum transfer consideration of HK$ 654,380,372. In the official announcement issued by CAR Inc on July 2 1 day, in addition to 443 million shares of UCAR drivers, BAIC will also receive the shares from its major shareholder Amber? Growth enterprise market acquired 1.7 1 billion shares with a total price of 529 million yuan. After the completion of this transaction, UCAR will no longer hold shares in the automobile company. ..

At this point, the battle for automobile companies between BAIC and SAIC has been settled. From the results, the purchase price of SAIC and BAIC is 3. 1 HK$ per share. Upon completion of the acquisition, BAIC will hold a total of 28.9 1% of the shares of CAR Inc. and become the largest shareholder of CAR Inc. ..

◆? Comprehensive choice

Why did UCAR finally choose BAIC? Perhaps it goes back to the source of cooperation between the two sides. In April this year, BAIC and UCAR jointly announced that they would reach comprehensive strategic cooperation through vehicle procurement, new retail of automobiles, technical cooperation, big data and financial services.

Subsequently, on May 3 1 day, the two sides reached a strategic cooperation agreement. However, the more important in-depth cooperation took place on 20 18. UCAR acquired 67% shares of Baowo Automobile and became the major shareholder with absolute control over Baowo. While transferring Baowo, Foton Motor and Shenzhou reached a comprehensive strategic cooperative relationship, which opened up a new retail model for automobiles.

In fact, BAIC Group's acquisition of CAR Inc. held by UCAR also indicated that it was mainly due to the strategic consideration of BAIC Group's layout of travel ecology, and hoped to improve the business puzzle of the travel sector and realize the deep integration of "traditional automobile+travel industry" through its shareholding in CAR Inc. ..

◆? Plot a big trip

With the changes in China's population structure and automobile consumption structure, consumers' travel demand is also upgrading. According to car home and Deloitte's insight into the car consumption of the Z generation in China in 2020, young people's attitudes towards travel are more diversified. After 1995, the new mode of travel represented by online carpooling was highly accepted, and nearly 40% of them became high-frequency users. They have taken car rental and online car rental as a more regular way of traveling.

In order to adapt to the changes in market environment and consumer behavior, car companies have laid out travel services in recent years. At the same time, new energy vehicles, industrial upgrading and transformation and other related policy guidance have also played a role in fueling the situation to a certain extent. In essence, travel service is an inevitable choice for the long-term development of car companies, which can enrich business models and further enhance the stickiness of brands and customers.

The layout of BAIC Group in the field of travel can be traced back to 20 14 at the earliest. This year, BAIC Group proposed the transformation and upgrading goal of "transforming from a traditional manufacturing enterprise to a manufacturing service-oriented innovative enterprise". Since then, BAIC New Energy, as the in-depth person in charge of the travel business of BAIC Group, has launched "Green Dog Car Rental", "BAIC Green Travel" and "Enjoy Travel Lightly" for different groups of people and different business models, while Penglong Platform, the service trade section of BAIC Group, has also built a time-sharing service brand "Jingxing" for government and enterprise customers.

From 2065438 to February 2007, BAIC established Huaxia Travel Co., Ltd., mainly engaged in online taxi operation, car rental, technical development of new energy vehicle charging facilities, and gradually incorporated existing travel brands into Huaxia Travel Platform. Up to now, Huaxia's travel business has covered various forms such as car time-sharing, online car booking, urban logistics and car rental.

Compared with the Internet travel platform, the pre-installed travel solutions provided by car companies can better meet consumers' personalized travel needs, reduce vehicle manufacturing costs, produce synergies, and get better support from local governments in the construction of travel service networks and the acquisition of operating licenses.

The third-party service operators with Internet genes have accumulated a large number of end users and online and offline operation experience, which traditional car companies can't catch up with in a short time. At present, the travel service operation of car companies is mostly limited to self-owned brand vehicles. Compared with service providers who provide vehicles with multiple brands, the market competitiveness of automobile manufacturers will also be affected.

BAIC's shareholding in UCAR is only a complement. Car companies have high-quality user resources, technical system, operation system and stable operation team, which can form a useful supplement to the travel sector of BAIC Group and realize the expansion of scale and the improvement of market share.

◆? What is the prospect of car companies?

As of July 20th, the market value of CAR Inc was only HK$ 6.2 billion, down nearly 90% from its peak. BAIC entered the market at the current price. From the capital level, it is undoubtedly the best time to seize the bargain-hunting. However, the outside question is, can car companies still bear the expectations of BAIC for the travel department at this time?

According to CAR Inc. 20 19 financial report, its net profit was only 0.3 1 100 million yuan, down 89.3% year-on-year. Although the net profit dropped sharply, the total income of the whole year increased by 65,438+09.4% year-on-year, reaching 7.69 billion yuan. Among them, car rental income was 4.92 billion yuan, up 9.6% year-on-year, accounting for 64% of the total income.

This means that CAR Inc' s main business has not declined, and the reasons for the sharp decline in net profit can be attributed to four aspects: weak second-hand car sales, sharp increase in vehicle depreciation costs, rising operating costs, and intensified competition in tourist cities, resulting in lower-than-expected rental income. It can be found that the sharp rise in costs is the main reason.

This year, the spread of COVID-19 epidemic made the car companies worse. In the first quarter of 2020, the financial report showed that the total revenue of the car company was 6543.8 yuan+32.5 million yuan, down 28.3% year-on-year, and the net profit also fell from last year's meager profit to a net loss of 6543.8 yuan+88 million yuan. Although the domestic epidemic was contained in the second quarter, the overall performance trend of CAR Inc is still not optimistic.

To some extent, this can be attributed to the sequelae of CAR Inc' s asset-oriented model. According to the data, the Internet of Vehicles, as the largest car rental enterprise in China, has never stopped expanding its fleet size even in the years of declining performance. As of March 3, 2020, CAR Inc has a total fleet size of 14 17000 vehicles and outlets of 1000, covering more than 300 cities in China.

The so-called "success is Xiao He, failure is me". Although the strong investment in offline has stabilized CAR Inc' s market leading position, it also became a drag on its performance when the Black Swan incident broke out. In 2020, CAR Inc suspended the new car purchase plan, and the fleet size even decreased slightly compared with 20 19. The focus of operation turned to profit, adjusted the business direction in time, and quietly launched the annual rent model.

At present, the sales of new cars in the auto market have fallen sharply, and the growth space of traditional car rental business is limited. "Selling by rent" can provide consumers with more choices. For CAR Inc, cutting into automobile sales through financial leasing has broken through the current consumption scene dominated by tourism and broadened the target population, which coincides with the deeply integrated travel ecological chain of BAIC's "traditional automobile+travel industry" and can achieve synergy with all major business segments of BAIC's vehicle R&D system, manufacturing system, distribution system and after-sales service network system.

The short-term impact of the epidemic will not affect the hard demand and long-term value of travel services. If BAIC Group can find a balance point and profit point between scale and profit after entering CAR Inc, further reduce costs, improve operational efficiency and open up new business models, then it will have the opportunity to successfully break through in the travel market surrounded by strong enemies at home and abroad and win the key battle on the road of realizing the transformation to manufacturing service-oriented and innovative enterprises. (Text/car home? Zhao Jing)