The pit of the 10 trillion world copper king is deeper than Evergrande

作者|張媛

September 21,Guiyang Bank Announcement, because a series of defendants such as Zhengwei Department have no executable property for the time being, a debt with a principal of 1.584 billion yuan and corresponding interest, penalty interest, and compound interest was ruled by the court to terminate this execution procedure.

It is worth noting that Guiyang Bank had set up triple guarantees for this credit. Except for the 16 properties held by Wang Wenyin, the actual controller of Zhengwei Group, other guarantee measures had no substantive effect. And these 16 suites,After the first auction, the second auction, and the sale, there was no successful disposal.

The final execution means that there is a high probability that the collection will be fruitless, and this is not the only debt hole that this “world copper king” who claims to have 10 trillion resources has dug for financial institutions.

There is no property to enforce the triple guarantee

Guiyang Bank’s 1.6 billion credit extension in 2021 has three guarantees:: First, withShenzhen Zhengwei Group, Wang Wenyin, Liu Jiehong,Warwick polyimideSign the “Maximum Guarantee Contract”, and the four parties will provide the highest joint and several guarantee liability; secondly, withShenzhen Zhengwei Group、Shenzhen Chengwei New Materials、Wei Zi Yao yellow mahogany artwork、Zhengwei Technology (Shenzhen), Ju Wansu and Ju Wansu signed the “Maximum Mortgage Contract”. These five parties provided a maximum mortgage guarantee for a total of 16 Shenzhen properties under their names; third, withShenzhen Zhengwei Group, Zhengwei International Group signed the “Maximum Pledge Contract”, and the two companies provided the maximum pledge guarantee with the relevant equity held by them.

It can be seen from the above contract that the 16 properties located in Shenzhen can be directly disposed of, but the assessed value of these properties is only 160 million, which cannot even cover 10% of the debt. Despite this, on May 29 this year, Guiyang Bank tried its best to restore the losses by placing auctions in two batches on the judicial auction platform.

Among them, 6 office units located in the Nongke Business Office Building in Shenzhen failed to sell in the first and second auctions. They were sold on September 7, but still no one took the offer. In addition, there are 8 residences in Tianyu Xiangshan Garden and 8 villas in Hanshida Huating, a total of 10 suites. The auction results are the same as above.

What about Guarantee Founder Zhengwei Group? Zhengwei Group ranks 124th among the world’s top 500 companies in 2023, 37th among the top 500 Chinese companies, and 8th among the top 500 Chinese manufacturing companies… As a giant company with a turnover of more than 600 billion yuan in 2022, Zhengwei Group has a much larger portfolio than Evergrande in terms of asset size and revenue.

But now both Zhengwei Group and Wang Wenyin are in dire straits.

As of September this year,Shenzhen Zhengwei’s cumulative total execution amount is approximately 16.6 billion yuan, and the unfulfilled amount is approximately 13.9 billion yuan., a large number of cases are in final status,Wang Wenyin has been listed as a person subject to execution for dishonesty many times and has been restricted from high consumption.. In addition, its domestic and overseas equity, land, industrial parksLarge areas were frozen and seized.Industrial parks in Fu’an, Fujian, Pingyang, Zhejiang, Rugao, Jiangsu, etc.Unfinished business, work stopped, land repossessed.

10 trillion “World Copper King” is disillusioned

Wang Wenyin, 58, is the founder of Zhengwei Group. With the ultra-high copper reserves claimed by its subsidiaries, it was crowned the “World’s Copper King”.

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He was born in a remote mountain village in Anqing, Anhui Province in 1968, but in 1989 he was admitted to the Astronomy Department of Nanjing University with a score 50 points above the admission limit, becoming the first college student in the village.

During his college years, due to financial constraints, he devoted almost all his time to the library, reading extensively on economics and management books, and accumulated knowledge reserves for his future business career. After graduating in 1993, Wang Wenyin gave up his scientific research-related work and went south to Shenzhen. Starting from the most basic cable sales, he quickly established a foothold in the non-ferrous metal trading field with his keen market sense and adventurous character.

In 1997, the Asian financial crisis became the first important turning point in Wang Wenyin’s life. At a time when the industry was generally shrinking production capacity and avoiding risks, he made a “big gamble” to expand against the trend. Instead of reducing business, he increased investment to seize market share. This decision allowed him to reap excess returns after the crisis and accumulated the first pot of gold for starting a business.

In 1999, Wang Wenyin officially founded Zhengwei International Group, with copper trade as its core business, and gradually built a supply chain system from raw material procurement to product sales. It also replicated the “anti-trend expansion” strategy twice during the SARS epidemic in 2003 and the global financial crisis in 2008. It took advantage of the industry’s trough period to acquire assets at low prices and expand production capacity. Zhengwei Group’s scale grew rapidly, and it gradually formed an industrial layout with non-ferrous metals as its main industry.Wang Wenyin also won the title of “World Copper King” by relying on the massive copper reserves he claimed.

After 2010, Zhengwei Group entered a period of crazy expansion. Its business territory was no longer limited to the copper industry, but crossed over to semiconductors, new energy, industrial park development and other fields. At that time,Zhengwei claims to have multiple mines in more than 20 countries around the world, with total copper reserves of 24 million to 30 million tons, resource value exceeding 10 trillion yuan, and controlling 5%-10% of the world’s copper mine production capacity.

Relying on this “trillion in minerals” gimmick, Zhengwei Group’s revenue data has soared. In 2021, it overtook Huawei with a revenue of 700 billion yuan and topped the list of private enterprises in Guangdong. In 2022, its revenue further increased to 720 billion yuan. It has been among the world’s top 500 companies for many consecutive years, with a highest ranking of 68th.

In the capital market,Wang Wenyin’s net worth once soared to 110 billion yuan, ranked among the top of the world’s richest people, and received various honors, including “the world’s most creative Chinese business leader” and “China’s Economic Person of the Year”. The business legend has been repeatedly praised.

Evergrande becomes the one who breaks the camel’s back

the last straw

Zhengwei Group’s seemingly huge revenue scale actually relies on “left-hand and right-hand” related-party transactions. According to disclosures, 93% of Zhengwei’s 700 billion revenue comes from the flow of goods from internal related companies. The corresponding net profit in 2021 is only 100 million yuan, with a profit margin of less than 0.01%, which is far lower than the industry average.

The so-called “trillion mineral resources” lack empirical support. Research papers by the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and other institutions have never listed Zhengwei as a major participant in overseas copper mine acquisitions.The specific location and mining records of its mines cannot be found through public channels. Instead, its electrolytic copper mainly relies on external procurement. The myth of the “World Copper King” is more like a marketing gimmick stuck on PPT. At the same time, Zhengwei Group has laid out industrial parks in many places across the country, acquiring land at low prices under the guise of “high-tech industrial projects”, and then mortgaged the land and factories to banks to obtain loans. However, most of the industrial parks have been idle for a long time after completion and have never been put into production. They are basically tools for land enclosure financing.

And the hundreds of billions bet on Evergrande became the last straw that broke the camel’s back.。In 2017, Wang Wenyin was attracted by the high profits of the real estate industry and spent 5 billion yuan to invest in Evergrande, becoming its third batch of strategic investors. He has deep faith in Xu Jiayin and has injected a total of more than 100 billion yuan into Evergrande. He also pledged many real estate companies under Zhengwei Group in Yingkou, Yichun and other places, and even his own equity in Zhengwei Group to Evergrande, deeply binding the interests of both parties.

Group photo at Evergrande’s 2018 Strategic Partner High-Level Summit, second to fifth from left are Wang Wenyin, Sun Liang, Xu Jiayin, and Zhang Jindong. Source: Sina Finance

Wang Wenyin even wrote an acrostic poem “Xu Jiayin is outstanding and great”. However, there was a thunderstorm in Evergrande in 2021, and Zhengwei Group’s 100 billion investment was instantly wiped out, and the principal and Evergrande-related project funds and material funds could not be recovered. At this time, Zhengwei’s cash flow had been emptied by related transactions and industrial park financing. Faced with a huge debt hole, Zhengwei was completely unable to resist, and the capital chain was completely broken.

Zhengwei Group also has a huge funding gap in more than 20 projects across the country. Most of the projects have promised to invest tens of billions but have actually implemented very few. Industrial parks in Zaozhuang, Shandong, Qianshan, Anhui and other places are unfinished.

Can’t come up with an effective solution

In October 2023, Wang Wenyin resigned from the important positions of legal representative, chairman and general manager of Shenzhen Zhengwei (Group) Co., Ltd. Quanwei (Tongling) Copper, Anhui Jingwei High Conductivity New Materials and other core subsidiaries.

Subsequently, Wang Wenyin himself was repeatedly restricted from spending too much due to corporate debt. Although some height restrictions have been lifted in the short term, frequent judicial risks, suppliers’ demands for cash, and the continued slump in the stock prices of its listed companies have made the situation difficult.正威Even if global copper prices are at a ten-year high in 2025 and peer companies are making a lot of money, they will not be able to enjoy industry dividends.

As of now,正威集團Only sporadic asset transfers were seen, andThere is no large-scale, systematic debt repayment action, let aloneSystemic debt restructuring program.

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