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Blue Whale News, October 17 (Reporter Wang Xiaonan) Haiguang Information has once again faced a reduction in holdings by prominent investor Ge Weidong.

Since its listing on the STAR Market as the "first high-end CPU stock," Haiguang Information (688041.SH) has continued to see its performance rise, but it has repeatedly faced reductions in shareholdings by its shareholders. Despite a nearly 200% year-on-year increase in net profit in the third quarter of 2024, Haiguang Information still failed to retain prominent investor Ge Weidong, who reduced his holdings by 4.133275 million shares in the third quarter. Chaos Investment, which previously acquired 44.5909 million shares of Haiguang Information for nearly 500 million yuan, has frequently reduced its holdings by 25.395141 million shares after the one-year lock-up period ended upon the company's listing, cashing out approximately 1.874 billion yuan.

Net profit in the first three quarters surpasses last year's full-year figure

On October 16, Haiguang Information disclosed its third-quarter report for 2024. In the third quarter of this year, the company's operating revenue reached 2.374 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 78.33%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 672 million yuan, up 199.9% year-on-year. Regarding the reasons for the growth in performance, Haiguang Information stated that the continuous increase in market demand further drove a rapid increase in the company's operating revenue.

Judging from the performance in the first two quarters of this year, both revenue and net profit of Haiguang Information increased year-on-year. In the first three quarters of 2024, the company achieved operating revenue of 6.137 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 55.64%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 1.526 billion yuan, up 69.22% year-on-year.

According to data, Haiguang Information's primary business involves the research, development, and sales of high-end processors for servers, workstations, and other computing and storage devices. The company's products include Haiguang general-purpose processors (CPUs) and Haiguang coprocessors (DCUs).

Among them, Haiguang CPU series products are compatible with the x86 instruction set and mainstream operating systems and application software, and are used in critical industries or fields such as telecommunications, finance, the internet, education, and transportation. Haiguang DCU series products are based on the GPGPU architecture and are compatible with the general-purpose "CUDA-like" environment, used in fields such as big data processing, artificial intelligence, and commercial computing.

It is reported that Haiguang Information, founded in 2014, was jointly established by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Sugon through cooperation. It is also the only domestic enterprise producing x86 chips. In August 2022, Haiguang Information listed on the STAR Market as the "first high-end CPU stock."

In the years leading up to its listing, Haiguang Information's performance was not impressive. In 2018, the company's revenue was only 48 million yuan, with a net loss attributable to shareholders of 124 million yuan. Even after revenue grew to 1.022 billion yuan in 2020, the company remained in the red, with losses of 83 million yuan and 39 million yuan in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

It was not until 2021 that Haiguang Information achieved profitability for the first time. Since then, the company's performance has increased year by year, with revenue rising from 2.31 billion yuan in 2021 to 6.012 billion yuan in 2023, and net profit attributable to shareholders increasing from 327 million yuan to 1.263 billion yuan. Judging from the profit of 1.526 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2024, it has already surpassed last year's full-year profit.

It is not difficult to see from the company's gross margin that Haiguang Information is engaged in a highly profitable business. In the third quarter of 2024, Haiguang Information's gross margin reached 69.13%, with a gross margin of 65.63% for the first three quarters. For the full year of 2023, its gross margin was 59.67%.

However, Haiguang Information's R&D investment has not increased proportionally with the company's performance growth. In the first three quarters of 2024, the company invested 2.167 billion yuan in R&D, a year-on-year increase of 10.56%. The proportion of R&D investment in operating revenue was 35.31%, but it decreased by 14.4% year-on-year. In response, Haiguang Information explained that the significant year-on-year increase of 55.64% in operating revenue during the same period led to a decrease in the proportion of R&D investment in operating revenue.

After announcing a third-quarter report with a doubling of net profit, ratings agencies such as Kaiyuan Securities and Huafu Securities have given Haiguang Information a "buy" rating. However, on the other hand, the company's shareholders have been frequently reducing their holdings.

Shareholders reduce holdings en masse, with prominent investor Ge Weidong cashing out over 1.8 billion yuan

Concurrent with Haiguang Information's "impressive" third-quarter report, Chaos Investment, owned by prominent investor Ge Weidong, once again reduced its holdings.

On June 11, 2020, Chaos Investment subscribed to 44.5909 million yuan of registered capital in Haiguang Information at a price of 11.21 yuan per unit of capital contribution, for a total consideration of 499 million yuan, representing a 2.2% shareholding ratio. After Haiguang Information's IPO, Chaos Investment held 44.5909 million shares, ranking ninth among shareholders with a 1.92% shareholding ratio.

On August 12, 2022, Haiguang Information officially listed on the STAR Market at an issue price of 36 yuan per share, with an intraday high of 73.8 yuan per share. Based on that high price, Chaos Investment had a paper profit of approximately 2.79 billion yuan.

However, after reaching a high of 102 yuan per share on April 25, 2023, Haiguang Information's share price continued to decline. By August 14 of the same year, the company's share price had fallen to around 54 yuan per share, which was also the date of the one-year lock-up expiration upon its A-share listing.

According to WIND, in the third and fourth quarters of 2023, Chaos Investment reduced its holdings in Haiguang Information by 2.788177 million shares and 6.393958 million shares, respectively. Based on quarterly average prices of 56.75 yuan per share and 68.24 yuan per share, Chaos Investment approximately cashed out 158 million yuan and 436 million yuan, respectively. At the end of 2023, Chaos Investment held 35.408774 million shares of Haiguang Information, representing a 1.52% shareholding ratio of the total share capital.

By 2024, Chaos Investment had exited the top ten shareholders of Haiguang Information. As the company's share price continued to "recover," Chaos Investment continued to reduce its holdings. In the first quarter of 2024, Chaos Investment reduced its holdings in Haiguang Information by 12.079731 million shares, cashing out approximately 920 million yuan based on a quarterly average price of 76.21 yuan per share. Subsequently, in the third quarter, Chaos Investment chose to reduce its holdings again by 4.133275 million shares, cashing out approximately 360 million yuan based on a quarterly average price of 87.39 yuan per share.

Since the lock-up expiration in August 2023, Ge Weidong has reduced his holdings in Haiguang Information through Chaos Investment by a total of 25.395141 million shares. Roughly calculated, Ge Weidong's cash-out amount is approximately 1.8 billion yuan. As of the third quarter of 2024, Chaos Investment held only 19.195768 million shares of Haiguang Information, representing a 2.17% shareholding ratio of the tradable share capital. As of the close on October 17, the market value of Haiguang Information shares held by Chaos Investment was still approximately 1.983 billion yuan. Currently, Ge Weidong has netted over 1.3 billion yuan in profits.

In addition to Chaos Investment owned by Ge Weidong, Haiguang Information's "star" shareholders also include Sugon, Guoke Holdings, Changhong Electric, Taixin Capital, Haihe Industry Fund, and Sugon Turing.

Among them, Haihe Special Fund and Guoke Holdings, both under Haihe Industry Fund, have also reduced their holdings in Haiguang Information multiple times. In April 2019, Haifutianding Partnership transferred its 32.105 million capital contributions in Haiguang Information to Haihe Special Fund at a transfer price of 11.21 yuan per unit of capital contribution, for a transaction consideration of 360 million yuan. Guoke Holdings, as the "founder" of Haiguang Information, jointly established the company with Sugon as early as 2014 and owned 61.5 million shares before its IPO.

However, since the lock-up expiration last August, Haihe Special Fund has reduced its holdings in Haiguang Information by a total of 7.6396 million shares, and after reducing an additional 1 million shares in the third quarter of this year, it has cashed out approximately 611 million yuan. Guoke Holdings has also reduced its holdings by a total of 7.6396 million shares since the lock-up expiration last August, and after reducing an additional 5.702991 million shares in the third quarter of this year, it has cashed out approximately 2.899 billion yuan in total.