Produced | Sohu Technology
Author | Liang Changjun
The Lenovo Group’s sci-tech innovation board “one-day tour” incident has caused waves again. On the evening of December 29, the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission disclosed its decision on China International Capital Corporation and Wang Sheng, Sun Lei, Zhao Peilin, Xing Ke, and Xie Jingxin to take supervisory measures for supervisory talks.
It was decided that after investigation, it failed to perform full verification procedures on the issuer’s scientific innovation attribute identification during the process of sponsoring Lenovo Group’s application for listing on the Sci-tech Innovation Board, and mainly relied on the explanatory documents provided by the issuer to draw conclusive opinions. The procedures and evidence obtained were insufficient to support the disclosure, and failed to fully and accurately evaluate the issuer’s scientific and technological attributes.
The decision stated that the aforesaid behavior violated the provisions of Article 5 of the “Administrative Measures for Securities Issuance and Listing Sponsor Business” (CSRC Order No. 170). In accordance with the provisions of Article 65 of the “Measures for the Administration of Securities Issuance and Listing Sponsorship Business,” it was decided to adopt supervisory and administrative measures for supervisory talks against the aforementioned related parties.
Veteran investment banker Wang Jiyue said in an interview with Sohu Technology that the declaration is the responsibility, and the investment bank is responsible. This can be regarded as a benchmark for supervision. He believes that this also means that for the positioning of the science and technology innovation board, one must not only look at the satisfaction of the indicators, but must make substantive judgments; it must not only rely on the materials provided by the company, but also need independent professional verification, analysis and judgment.
On September 30 this year, Lenovo Group’s initial public offering of Depository Receipts (CDR) and its application for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board were accepted. It plans to issue no more than 1.338 billion CDRs and plans to raise 10 billion yuan. The sponsor of the issue.
According to the positioning of Lenovo Group on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in the prospectus, Lenovo Group is classified as a new generation of information technology. The prospectus stated that Lenovo Group’s smart device business group products belong to the Internet of Things and smart hardware fields in the new generation of information technology industry, and data center business group products (including servers, storage devices, solutions, etc.) belong to the new generation of information technology industry In the field of cloud computing, Lenovo Group is in line with the positioning of the new generation of information technology on the Sci-tech Innovation Board.
In terms of specific indicators related to science and innovation attributes, Lenovo Group selected “Science and Innovation Attribute Evaluation Criteria One”, that is, the cumulative R&D investment in the last three years accounts for ≥5% of the cumulative operating income in the last three years, or the cumulative R&D investment in the last three years The amount is greater than or equal to 60 million yuan, and the situation of Lenovo Group meets this standard. The foregoing determinations have been approved by the sponsor CICC.
According to Lenovo Group, the company’s average annual R&D investment exceeds 10 billion, making it the company with the highest R&D investment among companies that have been listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board and have applied for it. According to the prospectus, Lenovo Group’s R&D investment in fiscal year 18/19, fiscal year 19/20 and fiscal year 20/21 was 10.203 billion yuan, 11.517 billion yuan and 12.038 billion yuan, totaling more than 30 billion yuan.
However, after Lenovo Group was accepted by the Sci-tech Innovation Board, the outside world had doubts that it did not conform to the position of the Sci-Tech Innovation Board. Some believe that Lenovo’s current core business is still mainly from the assembly of the PC business, and that the business’s high-tech chips, memory, monitors, and software basically rely on external procurement. According to the prospectus, Lenovo Group’s main purchases of raw materials include processors and chips, memory and storage, displays, software, etc. The purchase amount for the 2020/21 fiscal year is 215.3 billion yuan, which is equivalent to more than half of the fiscal year’s revenue. In the same period, the cost of sales accounted for more than 60%.
What’s more dramatic is that only one working day passed, that is, on October 8, Lenovo Group and its sponsor CICC took the initiative to withdraw relevant documents for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. Article 67 (2) of the Rules decided to terminate the review of Lenovo Group’s issuance and listing.
On the evening of October 10th, Lenovo Group issued an announcement explaining the reason for withdrawing the science and technology innovation board, stating that after submitting the listing application materials, taking into account the company’s business scale and complexity, the financial information in the prospectus may expire during the review process of the application. . At the same time, after carefully considering the latest issuance and listing and other relevant capital market conditions, the company decided to withdraw its application for listing and trading of China Depository Receipts on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.
Regarding whether to continue to return to the A listing, Lenovo Group did not make a clear statement in the announcement. The announcement stated that the withdrawal of the application for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board will not have any adverse impact on the company’s financial status. The company will continue to monitor the situation closely. If there are any major updates and developments related to the proposed issuance of China Depository Receipts and listing, a separate announcement will be made in due course. .
However, Wang Jiyue believes that, judging from the current penalties imposed by regulators on CICC, Lenovo’s previous announcement may be just an excuse and not valid.
At the communication meeting for the second quarter of the Lenovo Group’s fiscal year 2021/22, Yang Yuanqing also responded to the market’s doubts about R&D for the first time: “Some people say that our R&D investment does not meet the listing requirements. This is completely wrong.” He said, Kechuang The standard of the board is that the accumulated R&D investment is more than 60 million yuan, and Lenovo has greatly crossed this threshold.
Lenovo Group is also intending to strengthen its R&D and innovation efforts. Yang Yuanqing previously stated that Lenovo Group will double its R&D investment in the next three years, and will increase its R&D and innovation efforts in all businesses, including devices, edge, cloud, internet, and intelligence, such as new technologies, new materials, and key components. Independent R&D and innovation of new technology, as well as 5G and cloud-network integration technology, data collection and analysis platform, artificial intelligence platform, etc.
In addition, Lenovo Group also stated that on the basis of a R&D team of more than 10,000 people, in the next three years, Lenovo Group will recruit 12,000 hard-core scientific and technological talents from the society and universities on a large scale globally in the next three years. Enrich the three-level innovation system. These actions or statements reveal that Lenovo Group is trying to change its inherent impression of the outside world, but it may take time to verify.Return to Sohu to see more
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