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On the evening of December 22, the Shanghai Stock Exchange disclosed that the listing application status of Honeycomb Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Honeycomb Energy) has been "terminated". Honeycomb Energy responded that considering various factors and in the best interests of the company and its shareholders, Honeycomb decided to withdraw its A-share application and consider launching other financing options.

On November 18, 2022, the Shanghai Stock Exchange formally accepted the IPO application of Honeycomb Energy. According to the prospectus, Honeycomb Energy plans to raise 15 billion yuan, the largest amount of financing for the project under review by Science and Technology Innovation Board. It is used for the construction of lithium battery projects in the three places, the construction of Wuxi R & D center, and the development of lithium batteries such as ternary high-density batteries, cobalt-free batteries, "short knife" batteries, and new batteries. However, the Shanghai Stock Exchange twice rejected Honeycomb's IPO application because "the financial information recorded in the IPO application document has expired and needs to be supplemented."

Honeycomb Energy was born out of Great Wall Motor and officially spun off from Great Wall Motor in 2018 to become a brother company of Great Wall Motor, but the actual controller is Wei Jianjun. According to the prospectus, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Automobile, controls 40.26% of the company through Baoding Ruimao and Great Wall Holdings, and controls 76.81% of the voting rights of the company. Relevant data show that the operating income of honeycomb energy from 2019 to 2022 is 929 million yuan, 1.736 billion yuan, 4.474 billion yuan and 9.97 billion yuan respectively. From 2019 to 2022, the net losses were 326 million yuan, 700 million yuan, 1.154 billion yuan and 2.256 billion yuan respectively.

The customers of Honeycomb Energy cover many mainstream vehicle enterprises at home and abroad, and have reached cooperative relations with Great Wall Automobile, Geely Automobile, Zero running Automobile, Dongfeng Automobile, Lantu Automobile, Xiaopeng Automobile, ideal Automobile, Beamlight Automobile, Cyrus Automobile, Hezhong New Energy Automobile and other vehicle enterprises. among them, Geely Automobile, Lantu Automobile, Hezhong Automobile, Wuling Automobile and other projects have been newly developed since 2023. As one of the battery manufacturers with comprehensive layout of PHEV products, Honeycomb Energy products have been loaded into more than 20 models of mainstream car companies, such as ideal, Lantu, Great Wall, etc., and the L400 short knife flying stack PHEV battery launched by the company has become a popular style in the industry. In the Zengji new energy vehicle market, ideal L7, Lantu FREE, Lantu Dreamer, Hezhong Naxi S and other models also use honeycomb energy ternary lithium-ion batteries.

Although it is spun off and has many partners, Honeycomb Energy is difficult to be independent. The company derives nearly 100% of its revenue from Great Wall in 2019 and 2020, up from 86% in 2021. In the first round of inquiries, the Shanghai Stock Exchange asked: after deducting the related sales to Great Wall Motor, whether the issuer still meets the listing conditions?

In the case of poor performance data, Honeycomb Energy has a high valuation, rising to 46 billion yuan after the completion of the final round of financing. When IPO was officially launched, the corresponding valuation of its IPO reached 60 billion yuan, and the amount of capital raised for the first time was as high as 15 billion yuan, which was the largest amount of financing for the project under review by Science and Technology Innovation Board, but it ended in failure.

For most power battery enterprises, the difficulty of making profits has something to do with the characteristics of the battery industry. Due to the limitations of the development of the industry itself, the battery manufacturing industry is a heavy asset industry, whether it is the early construction of plant, purchase of equipment, reserve of raw materials, or the middle and later stage of technological research and development and production line upgrading, need a lot of start-up capital, so the return period is relatively slow.

Prior to this, the IPO of Jiangxi Jiuling Lithium Industry Co., Ltd., Quzhou Nanfeng Chemical Co., Ltd., and other two companies were suspended one after another, and Honeycomb Energy became the third battery manufacturer to be suspended, hoping that the dream of A-share IPO would be dashed.

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