2016.07.07 CoStone Capital Views:
“We will stay away from those who go against the trend. Never hold a piece of ice on your hands in a hot summer.” said Chen Yanli.
CoStone Capital Chen Yanli: Avoid Those Who Go Against the Trend
“We will stay away from those who go against the trend. Never hold a piece of ice on your hands in a hot summer.” said Chen Yanli. “Investment relies on the fundamentals. We only dig in what we are familiar with and eliminate information asymmetry by conducting a large amount of investigations. Then we can find the enterprises with a margin of safety. Be certain about the downside potential of an enterprise. If it has less downside potential, it will have more upside potential. In 2013, as the valuation of some companies in the secondary market was lower than the PE price, CoStone moved fast to initiate a PIPE fund a targeted investment fund for the non-public stocks of listed companies. When the market was unappreciated, the fund gained the most profits. We prefer the project with low risks and moderate gains.” he continued.
When it came to the shrinkage of crossover private placement, Chen Yanli indicted that, the stocks in some popular sectors were hyped up, whose valuation were unreasonable for private placement and the secondary market. CoStone would not be a part of them if their valuation remained unchanged. When asked about which industry would be most promising, Chen Yanli suggested that the leading companies in every industry like medicine and consumer goods would be most likely to gain long-term benefits.
Chen Yanli believed that if one knew the reasonable valuation of a stock, he must know the market timing well. Avoid impulsive investment and never go all-in on anything. The bubbles always blast in the end. The value of all assets in the financial market would rise again after a fall.
At present, the amount of private placement in A share topped ¥1 billion ($154.834m), with more than 3,000 agencies competing in this market. CoStone Capital has managed nearly ¥2 billion ($309.669m) private placement this year.
Above: Excerpt from the interview with Chen Yanli, co-founder of CoStone Capital from Shenzhen TV. Please refer to this link to view the interview in full: http://stonevc.com/news_view.aspx?TypeId=5&Id=399&Fid=t2:5:2
Rewritten by: Luo Xinying, Edited by: Du Zhixin, Wei Yiyi
Over the past year, the bull market returned, with technology leading the way.
As I said back in October 2024, the rally that began on September 24 was not merely a rebound, but a reversal. Since then, China's capital markets have undergone a broad revaluation, moving from undervaluation toward fair value.
The Shanghai Composite Index reached its highest level in a decade. The "Yi-Zhong-Tian" trio—Eoptolink, Zhongji Innolight and TFC Communication, three prominent Chinese optical communications stocks—saw their share prices multiply severalfold in a single year. Cambricon's market capitalization briefly exceeded RMB 600 billion. Elsewhere in the technology sector, triple-digit price-to-earnings ratios and valuations exceeding RMB 10 billion became commonplace.
Some investors were greedy; others, fearful. Still others asked me: Are technology stocks in a valuation bubble?
My answer is that what we are witnessing is the hunger and anxiety of an era, reflected in the capital markets. Once you understand this, the current fervor for technology investing is no longer difficult to explain.
Investment has nothing to do with macroeconomics, but everything to do with geopolitics.
China-US relations will shape the investment landscape for decades to come. Geopolitics has played a major role in shaping the hunger and anxiety of our times, fundamentally reshaping the way we invest.
What, then, lies at the heart of China's hunger and anxiety?
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is already underway, yet China has not fully overcome the technological shortcomings left by the Third. There is no time to lose.
This is why some people wonder: Why do Chinese computing chip companies command such high valuations when their technologies still lag so far behind NVIDIA's? Why does NVIDIA trade at just 50 times earnings, while a company hailed as "China's answer to NVIDIA" commands a multiple of 300?
To me, this gets the logic exactly backward.
It is precisely because these companies cannot catch up with NVIDIA in the near term that they command a higher strategic premium. The wider the technological gap, the greater the strategic value.
The further something lies beyond our reach, the stronger our hunger. The harder it is to catch up, the deeper our anxiety. If China were to achieve a complete breakthrough in computing chips one day, valuations might actually come down.
Where can one find China's most spectacular natural landscapes?
Much of the answer, I believe, lies in and around the Hengduan Mountains: the Meili Snow Mountains, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Mount Gongga, Mount Siguniang, Jiuzhaigou, and many others. Vast differences in elevation and deep fault lines have given rise to landscapes of extraordinary grandeur.
Hard-tech investing follows a similar logic.
Technological gaps, discontinuities in capabilities, and missing links in industrial systems: a leap in difficulty brings a leap in valuation, and a successful breakthrough can, in turn, bring a leap in returns.
This logic extends well beyond computing chips. It is equally evident in memory semiconductors, commercial spaceflight, and other sectors where China still faces substantial technological gaps with other countries.
It was precisely this conviction that led CoStone Capital, starting in 2016, to decisively focus its investments on three areas: hard tech, emerging industries, and life sciences and healthcare. In this context, "hard tech" refers specifically to important industries in which China faces a technological gap with the United States.
Thanks to this forward-looking strategy, CoStone Capital established an early presence across the full value chains of key sectors, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
Looking ahead, the frontiers of technological progress and industrial upgrading are boundless. Nor can the gaps in hard technology be closed overnight. The twin windows of opportunity presented by technological innovation and the development of homegrown alternatives to foreign technologies have only just begun to open.
The road ahead is long, but the future holds immense promise.
As an investment firm, CoStone Capital will continue to invest where the hunger and anxiety of each era run deepest, move forward with the tensions that shape our times, and extend our reach toward the most challenging—and most important—frontiers.
Spring 2026