2016.12.17 Wang Qiwen Views:
2016 sees ups and downs. Black swan events wait for deeper thoughts. In terms of mergers, two things in 2016 should be highlighted.
2016 sees ups and downs. Black swan events wait for deeper thoughts. In terms of mergers, two things in 2016 should be highlighted.
First, the conflict between capital and companies. More listed companies offered tender this year, an important event in the market. What I want to highlight is respect and support to entrepreneurs in mergers. An entrepreneur is the soul of a company. There is a certain link between a good entrepreneur and a good company, especially in China. That’s why they should be respected in mergers. Mergers without excellent entrepreneurs like Wang Shi, Dong Mingzhu, and Zeng Nan are at risk in my opinion.
Mergers should be based on the real economy. Capital without a concrete company is unpractical and full of bubbles. Mergers are attractive because they can establish industrial ecology. This is also why we never cease doing that.
Post-merger management and integration decide the new company. The governance system should be well-planned before the merger. Disorders in the governance system will bring the company critical setbacks. Operating teams should also be brought under effective mechnism such as the share incentive mechanism. CoStone carried out large-scale mergers in the healthcare and car industries. These mergers of several billion tell us one thing: the company’s governance and incentive mechanism for the management team should be both in place to secure a successful merger.
The above is an excerpt from a speech by Wang Qiwen on the seminar of “Capital in the Big Merger Era”. The seminar is part of the “2016 Asia Industry & Capital” held by 21st Century Business Herald on December 22 in Hilton Shenzhen Shekou Nanhai under the theme of “Global View: Reform in Corporates”
Rewritten by Chen Cong, Edited by Li Yunzhen, Du Zhixin
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