Wanhua Industrial Group

Predecessors

Yantai synthetic leather factory

The predecessor of Wanhua Group Corporation, was Yantai synthetic leather factory ( or ).[1] The plan to build the factory was approved by the State Development Planning Commission in 1978.[2] The construction started in 1980 and completed in 1983.[3] The manufacturing technology was imported from Japan (from Nippon Polyurethane Industry according to C&EN[4]) and was the first synthetic polyurethane leather factory of China.[5]

In 1988, the ownership of the factory was transferred from the Ministry of Light Industry of the People's Republic of China to the Yantai Municipal People's Government.[1]

Wanhua Group Corporation

In 1995, the factory was re-incorporated as a limited company as, or in short, Wanhua Group Corporation .[1]

In 1998, a subsidiary Yantai Wanhua Polyurethane (now Wanhua Chemical Group) was formed. The subsidiary owned the methylene diphenyl diisocyanate production line of the factory.[1] However, Wanhua Group Corporation retained several production line such as the supply chain of liquid chlorine, sodium hydroxide, pure water, steam vapour and electricity.[1] The subsidiary became a listed company in January 2001.

In October 2001, Wanhua Group Corporation formed another subsidiary Wanhua Industrial Group (see section below). In 2015, 39.497% shares of Wanhua Industrial Group was transferred from Wanhua Group Corporation to its parent State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the Yantai Municipal People's Government, making Wanhua Group Corporation and Wanhua Industrial Group were sister companies.[6]

As of 2019, Wanhua Group is a live company. It owned the shares of Yantai Wanhua Hospital as well as other assets.[7]

Wanhua Industrial Group

Foundation and privatization

In October 2001, Wanhua Group Corporation formed another subsidiary Wanhua Industrial Group (founded as, known as since 2008) as part of a debt-to-equity swap. Central Government owned bad banks managers China Huarong and China Cinda were the minority shareholders. Cinda and Huarong later sold the shares of Wanhua Industrial Group.

According to the company itself, Wanhua Group Corporation injected all the assets to Wanhua Industrial Group at the time of the debt-to-equity swap, which including the shares of Yantai Wanhua Polyurethane, Yantai Huali, Wanhua Microfiber , etc.[8]

Wanhua Industrial Group was the direct parent company of the listed company Yantai Wanhua Polyurethane since 2001 and effective in March 2003.[9] Wanhua Industrial Group still owned 47.92% shares of the listed company as of 31 December 2017, before another company shake up in January 2018.[10]

Yantai Huali was a combined steam and electric power supplier of the listed company.[11]

In 2007, the Yantai city-owned Wanhua Group Corporation sold a further 25% stake of Wanhua Industrial Group to a consortium of Pemex, Deutsche Bank and one other investor.[12][13] After the deal, as of 2007, Wanhua Group Corporation owned 50.50% shares of Wanhua Industrial Group, the aforementioned consortium, via a BVI company Prime Partner International Limited, owned 25%,[13][14] and the rest (24.58%) was owned by Yantai Huali.[13]

By 2005, Yantai Huali was significantly (37.60%) owned by Wanhua Industrial Group. It was followed by Wanhua Group Corporation for 31.94% shares as well as employee stock ownership for the rest of the shares.[8] But since December 2006, Yantai Huali was majority owned by the managers of the listed company. Yantai Huali acquired 15.04% shares of Wanhua Industrial Group from Huarong in 2005[8] and 9.54% shares from Cinda in 2006.[15] The change in ownership of Yantai Huali, as well as acquiring the shares of Wanhua Industrial Group, was considered as an indirect employee stock ownership of the listed company.[15][16]

In 2013, Wanhua Industrial Group recapitalized another RMB4 billion and diluting the stake of the existing shareholders.[17]

BorsodChem acquisition

Wanhua Industrial Group was interested to buy Hungarian company BorsodChem in the late 2000s. By 2009, Wanhua Industrial Group already acquired about two-thirds of mezzanine capital of the BorsodChem.[18]

In 2011, Wanhua Industrial Group formally acquired BorsodChem.[19][20] It was the biggest Chinese outbound investment deal in Hungary.[21] The buyout of BorsodChem from private equity firms Permira and Vienna Capital Partners came at a financially bleak time for BorsodChem and allowed the company to avoid laying off its 2700 employees.[22][23] The parent companies of the listed company, also hired the listed company to manage BorsodChem from 2011[24] to circa 2019.

split and reverse IPO

In 2017, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the Yantai Municipal People's Government, transferred 39.497% stake of Wanhua Industrial Group to another city government-owned company Yantai Guofeng .[10] Yantai's SASAC acquired the aforementioned stake from its subsidiary Wanhua Group Corporation in 2015. (see above section)

In January 2018 Wanhua Industrial Group was split into two companies: the surviving Wanhua Industrial Group as well as. The latter became the new largest shareholder of the listed company instead.[25] The latter also owned the assets that directly related to polyurethane production,[26] including BorsodChem. However, the latter also reverse merged with the listed company in February 2019.[27]

As of 31 December 2018, after the split, Wanhua Industrial Group had a net assets of RMB4.930 billion.[26] It owned 33.07% shares of Wanhua EnergySave Science and Technical Group[26][28] ( or known as WanhuaEnergySav Science Technical Group[29][30]) The shares of that company were formerly traded in Chinese OTC system National Equities Exchange and Quotations as NEEQ:838261 until June 2018.[31]

The company also owned 15.56% shares of Wanhua Microfiber as of 2018.[26]