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A few days ago, Ziguang Co., Ltd. announced that it received a written resignation report submitted by the company's chairman Zhao Weiguo. Zhao Weiguo applied to resign from the company's director and chairman positions due to busy work. After his resignation, Mr. Zhao Weiguo no longer holds any position in the company.
This news immediately aroused strong repercussions in the industry. Although Tsinghua Unigroup came forward to explain that there are many companies in Tsinghua Unigroup, Zhao Weiguo is still the chairman of Tsinghua Unigroup, but Tsinghua Unigroup, known as the "national team" of China's chip industry, has not Taking any position and Ziguang shares is the representative of the Ziguang department, the fact is not as simple as the resignation explained by Ziguang himself and Zhao Weiguo is just busy work.
In fact, the industry is familiar with Zhao Weiguo and Ziguang, which is their frequent mergers and acquisitions in the chip industry (commonly known in the industry as the Ziguang mode of buying, buying and buying). For this reason, Zhao Weiguo has also won the title of "hungry tiger" in the chip industry.
According to incomplete statistics, since 2013 to the present, Tsinghua Unigroup has invested (including mergers and acquisitions) in nearly 20 companies (excluding those suspended or terminated in the later period), spending nearly 100 billion yuan. Among them, there are more than 13 mergers and acquisitions or investments in chip-related fields.
Among them, well-known ones include the privatization acquisition of Spreadtrum Communications in July 2013 at a cost of US$1.78 billion; in January 2014, the acquisition of RDA, a Chinese concept stock, for US$910 million; in May 2015, the acquisition of H3C, a subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard, US$2.5 billion 51% of the shares, the three mergers and acquisitions cost a total of 5.19 billion US dollars.
Since then, Tsinghua Unigroup has shifted the focus of mergers and acquisitions to overseas markets and companies, but the progress has not been smooth, as shown in the fact that almost all mergers and acquisitions of valuable chip companies have ended in failure.
For example, in July 2015, the proposed acquisition of Micron Technology for $23 billion (Micron is the only remaining American DRAM chip maker, producing NAND flash memory chips used for storing data in smartphones and other mobile devices) was rejected;
In September of the same year, Tsinghua Unigroup reached an agreement with Western Digital, the world's second largest hard drive manufacturer, whereby its wholly-owned subsidiary in Hong Kong bought a 15% stake in Western Digital, a US-listed company, for US$3.8 billion, intending to become the largest shareholder of Western Digital. However, the plan was ultimately aborted. In desperation, Ziguang Group and Western Digital invested US$80.58 million and US$77.42 million respectively to establish a joint venture company, Ziguang Western Digital Co., Ltd.
In addition, it is rumored that Tsinghua Unigroup's mergers and acquisitions of South Korea's SK Hynix and Taiwan's TSMC were also rejected.
Although Tsinghua Unigroup's overseas mergers and acquisitions with absolute value have frequently failed, its aggressive strategies and remarks have raised questions in the industry about the real purpose of its mergers and acquisitions.
For example, in an exclusive interview with the media, Guo Taiming, chairman of Hon Hai Group, bombarded Zhao Weiguo, chairman of Ziguang Group, as just a stock investor, which caused strong repercussions in the industry.
What's more, many facts are listed to prove that Ziguang's mergers and acquisitions are only for its own capital operation.
For example, after observing Zhao Weiguo's series of mergers and acquisitions, an IC design boss who is familiar with China said that China's national industrial policy is to obtain the technology and business know-how of foreign companies to strengthen its own industry and complete the import substitution of semiconductor products. Looking back at Zhao Weiguo's series of measures, he is more like an "arbitrage" who rides on the government's preferential investment policies rather than a "white glove" of the Chinese government (the Wall Street Journal's title for Ziguang's background and mergers and acquisitions). That is to use mergers and acquisitions, especially mergers and acquisitions of well-known companies in the industry to obtain the support of government-related funds for capital operation.
The doubts of the above-mentioned industry insiders are not unfounded. In the first half of 2017 alone, the top 20 deals completed $43 billion in financing , with government-backed private equity funds investing as much as At US$22 billion, it ranks high on the list (accounting for half of the total financing), 4 times the US$5.5 billion of the second-ranked Didi Chuxing.
It should be noted that the data comes from venture capital data provider InnoTREE, which uses artificial intelligence technology to search Chinese websites and confirm the accuracy of the information by contacting investors, companies and banks.
I don't know what the industry thinks after seeing the above? What we have seen is that whether it is "white gloves" or "arbitrage", the impression that Ziguang has left on the industry will have a negative impact on the development of China's chip industry in the future.
What magnifies this negative impact is a series of outspoken remarks made by Zhao Weiguo. For example, in an exclusive interview with Taiwanese media, Zhao Weiguo said that while he "sadly complained" that the Taiwan authorities of China closed the IC industry entrance, he left a sentence at the end of the interview: "In fact, Taiwan is not our investment focus, but the United States."
It is this kind of remarks that may be unintentional by the speaker and intentional by the listener, which has led to the resurgence of the sensitive chip dispute between China and the United States.
例如2017年1月6日，美国总统科技顾问委员会发表了《确保美国在半导体领域长期领导地位》报告，该报告认为中国芯片业已经对美国相关企业和国家按照造成严重威胁，为此，成员包括英特尔和高通等芯片制造商的现任和前任首席执行官的委员会给出的建议是：阻止中国收购美方认为影响到其国家安全的所有半导体技术和芯片企业，限制中国对美芯片的行业投资、出口和采购，同时和其他国家联手，加强限制审查中国的海外芯片出口和投资。
而这些举措的原因之一就是中国企业的疯狂并购。当然我们这里并非说美国对于中国芯片产业的禁忌是紫光一家所致，但作为中国芯片产业的“国家队”，紫光的一言一行起到的作用是绝对不应被忽视的。
如果说上述美国对于中国芯片产业的禁忌还带有一定政治色彩的话，那么从商业的角度看，赵伟国的某些言论也让对方钻了空子。
例如在并购展讯，提及与联发科的竞争时，赵伟国曾有过霸气的表态：
“展讯可以不赚钱，联发科能不赚钱吗？因为我的资本比它强大，我每年可以赔钱，我可以一直赔……联发科会赔掉更多钱，它慢慢就受不了了。”
对此，Bernstein在报告中称，中国不走到主导市场的地步是不会善罢甘休的，而且没有一次没破坏行业的价值和经济机制，而英国《经济学人》杂志曾撰文称，如果中国芯片巨头想要取得成功，首先就必须从“成本文化转向创新文化”。而赵伟国通过其言论透露出的芯片竞争策略恰恰是业内所担心的不利于芯片产业创新和价值的体现。
自海外并购折戟之后，无奈的紫光将投资和并购的重点转向了国内市场和企业且低调了很多，其中最典型的就是对于长江存储的并购，最终改为197亿元对于长江存储51%股权的持有。
虽然紫光希望从闪存切入芯片产业，但鉴于现在全球3D NAND技术是由三星电子、SK海力士、美光/英特尔、东芝所掌握使得紫光还在研究32 层堆叠 3D NAND Flash存储产品时，三星、东芝、海力士已经在64层技术上发力，这种投资的影响力已经不具备战略价值。
需要提醒业内注意的是，所谓三家目前在业内技术领先的闪存芯片厂商，其中有两家就是当初紫光竭力要并购的企业（海力士和美光），由此也证明了创新和技术是买不来的。而彼时的紫光也将自主创新放在了战略首位。
进入到今年，紫光基本上不再谈什么与芯片产业相关的并购策略，而是将业务重心转向了云计算，即在近日召开的Navigate 2018领航者峰会上，紫光集团发布“紫光云战略”，宣布投资120亿元，开始进军公有云市场。
不过，据《华尔街日报》网站报道，2017年美国三大提供云服务的企业——亚马逊、微软和谷歌在资本支出和资本租赁(capitallease)上共投入416亿美元,较2016年增长了33%，高于2016年23%的支出增幅。
其它公司的资本支出也遵循着类似的轨迹。2017年，加拿大皇家资本市场追踪的19家云服务商共投入638亿美元，较去年增长了22%。可见作为云计算，尤其是公有云的后来者，紫光能否真的在竞争激烈，前期需要大量投入的公有云市场找到自己的立足之地依然充满很大的不确定性。更为关键的是，没有了芯片相关产业的支撑，未来紫光的资金会来自哪里？
综上所述，我们认为，从紫光对于芯片相关领域的并购力度不断减少直至战略的转变（从并购为主转向自主创新和云计算），赵伟国主导的以买买卖为特征的“紫光模式”并未给中国芯片产业的竞争力带来实质性的提升。
相反，由于并购策略上的激进（包括赵伟国本人的言论）反而给中国芯片产业未来的发展平添了诸多不利的因素（例如未来海外并购将变得越发艰难，甚至被封死；在中美贸易战博弈时成为对方的筹码），而所谓的自主创新和云计算不过是赵伟国以并购战略为主的“紫光模式”失效之后的被动选择，也许这才是赵伟国辞去紫光股份董事长且不再担任公司任何职务的真正原因。
毕竟身为芯片产业的“国家队”，拿着国家的相关资金，关键的时候未能发挥应有的实质性和正面筹码的作用是要背负责任的。不过，从中国芯片产业自主创新的战略上看，“紫光模式”的被终结足以引发我们业内的思考。
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