Chinese capital is optimistic about clean energy industry

According to the Investment Research Report of China's Clean Energy and Technology Industry in the Second Quarter of 2017 released by PricewaterhouseCoopers on September 19, the investment activities in China's clean energy and technology industry remained active on the whole, and high-tech enterprises were the investment targets. In the second quarter, there were 51 private equity/venture capital (PE/VC) investment events, 33 mergers and acquisitions and 5 public offerings (IPOs). According to the report, the competition of Chinese capital for clean energy and technology industries is inseparable from the trend of national policies and regulations focusing on environmental protection and energy fields in recent years, which reflects the green and environmental governance.

The report concluded that, in order to thoroughly implement the Chinese President's initiative of implementing the concept of green development and building a green silk road, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce of China jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Construction of the Green "the Belt and Road" in April 2017, and the "the Belt and Road" Ecological Environmental Protection Cooperation Plan issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in May. On April 1, 2017, the Energy Administration issued the 2017 Key Points for Standardization in the Energy Field to encourage intelligent production of clean energy and comprehensively promote the construction of "Internet plus" smart energy.

Against this background, the report shows that in the second quarter of this year, the investment in China's clean energy and technology industry increased significantly, and the amount of investment hit the single-quarter peak in nearly three years. There were 51 PE/VC investment events in this quarter, with the disclosed investment amount of 1.361 billion US dollars. The number of investment cases increased by 45.7% year on year, and the investment amount increased by 243.5% year on year. According to the number of investment cases, China's clean energy and technology industry investment in the secondary industry is still dominated by environmental protection, with 23 investment events, accounting for 45.1%; The proportion of new materials increased from 14.3% in the previous quarter to 27.5% in the second quarter, up 13 percentage points. In terms of investment amount, the new energy industry is the largest with US $938.2 million, accounting for 68.9%.

The report further analyzed that in the second quarter, there were 33 mergers and acquisitions in China's clean energy and technology industries, with a disclosed amount of 924 million US dollars, including only one cross-border merger and acquisition, and the other 32 domestic mergers and acquisitions. The number of M&A cases in the environmental protection and new energy industries dominated, with 18 and 14 M&A cases completed, accounting for 54.5% and 42.4% respectively. Although only one M&A case has been completed in the new material industry, the amount of M&A reached 392.6 million US dollars, accounting for 42.5% of the total amount of M&A in the whole industry, ranking first.

Among them, the report stressed that after the IPO peak in the previous quarter, there were five enterprises in China's clean energy and technology industry that completed IPO in the second quarter of 2017. Compared with the first quarter, the speed of IPO audit in the second quarter declined significantly, and the IPO event was halved on a month-on-month basis. At the same time, the amount of funds raised by IPO was slightly higher than that of the previous quarter, reaching US $661 million. Of the 27 companies listed on the New Third Board, 20 occurred in the field of environmental protection, accounting for 74.1%.

Bin Hong, chief partner of PwC China Power and Utilities, said: "In general, China's clean energy and technology industry's investment target enterprises in the second quarter are still dominated by mature enterprises such as companies listed on the New Third Board and listed companies. Most of China's clean energy and technology industry's companies listed on the New Third Board are high-tech enterprises. R&D, innovation and technology upgrading are the key to maintain the core competitiveness of enterprises. These enterprises are in a period of rapid growth, and they need to introduce institutional investors through additional shares Stay competitive. "