This Japanese chemical material company turned into a leading supplier of lithium battery materials, the chairman of the craftsman: it’s just a matter of course.

Guangzhou Financial Work Bureau and Panorama Network jointly entered Guangzhou listed companies and new three-board enterprises to explore the “Guangzhou spirit” in the tide of China's economic transformation and upgrading.

This time we went into Tianci Materials (37.690, 0.00, 0.00%). Through in-depth exchanges with Chairman Xu Jinfu, we found that the company started from the field of daily chemicals, and has made great progress in the field of lithium battery materials. Entrepreneurs with “artisan spirit” reflect the high sensitivity of innovation and the accurate judgment of industry trends. The strategy of “doing the industry leader, but not eating the food” makes it steadily move forward in the fierce competition in the industry.

Xu Jinfu, Chairman of Tianci Materials, accepted an interview with Panorama Business School

As a low-key and steady entrepreneur, Xu Jinfu does not have a temperamental atmosphere. It looks more like a high-profile senior "technical house." During the 14 years from 2000 to 2014, he personally brought out a listed company that led the two major business lines of raw materials for daily chemicals and lithium battery electrolyte. Especially in the strategic choice of cutting into the production of lithium battery materials, Xu Jinfu led Tianci materials to become the leading producer in this field and became the main supplier of lithium hexafluorophosphate in China.

Since 2016, the price of lithium hexafluorophosphate has risen sharply, which has led to a multiplication of the performance of Tianci materials. Tianzhi Materials' annual report for 2016 shows that in the past year, the company's revenue reached 1.837 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 94.25%, and net profit reached 396 million yuan, a three-fold increase over the same period last year.

Among them, lithium battery materials business revenue reached 1.225 billion yuan, an increase of 169%, business share also jumped from 48% last year to 67% this year, becoming the company's well-deserved growth engine. All these data, people can not help but sigh Xu Jinfu's judgment and forward-looking ability on the new energy battery market situation. And he also said that he did not think that the decision made at that time would open such a big market.

I graduated from a business, from the blue moon to being my own boss.

In 1987, Xu Jinfu and the graduate students of the Guangzhou Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences came out to start a business. By 1988, there were four people left in the team. Together they founded the former body of the Blue Moon, Dao Ming Chemical.

Talking about the company that started this business, Xu Jinfu was full of emotions, and Luo Qiuping, the general manager of the company and the current president of the blue moon, was very sure: "In fact, when we first came out, we did it ourselves. The project was not completely certain, but Luo was very passionate. At that time, when the dual-track system was over, he decided to be a company, and thought that we could create a company with its own R&D institutions and even universities. ”

Looking back at the team that year, Xu Jinfu is also very pleased. Most of those who came out of the Blue Moon in the past became the core of the company, including sales directors, R&D leaders and executives, etc., and created an elite circle of “Blue Moon” in the industry. As the leader of the "Blue Moon" fine chemical technology, Xu Jinfu's subsequent creation of Tianci and Blue Moon has become a supply relationship between the upstream and downstream, forming a good partnership.

Tianci Material Headquarters Office Building

In the few years after the Blue Moon, Xu Jinfu conducted an entrepreneurial attempt for raw materials for pharmaceutical intermediates based on his own interests and professional expertise. Finally, he took the initiative to end this project that had failed from an entrepreneurial perspective. "From the whole line, it is not a failure, but the capital I accumulated in the Blue Moon has also lost 60%-70%." Speaking of the second entrepreneurial experience that was not successful at home, Xu Jinfu felt This has helped her growth, but it is only a minor episode in the long process of entrepreneurship.

In 1995, Xu Jinfu returned to Guangzhou and re-intervened in the raw material market. While doing research and development, he is also selling, and the new company has continued to grow steadily. “I am very familiar with the daily chemical industry in Guangzhou. The market in Guangdong itself is very large, and from the perspective of the daily chemical industry, the industry in Guangdong is more advanced than other places, and it has been the same since now.” Chatting back to Guangzhou at that time The reason is that Xu Jinfu has fully affirmed the environment in Guangdong.

The starting point of soaring: the explosion of lithium battery materials

The new company has been firmly established in 2003, and has become a leading domestic company in the raw material industry. So far, the company has established strong cooperative relationships with a number of international brands including Procter & Gamble, Unilever, L'Oreal and Colgate. At that time, Xu Jinfu, who had an extremely accurate judgment on the commercial value of the project, was keenly aware that the lithium-ion battery industry had a good business prospect. Since 2004, he has gradually established a lithium-ion battery material research and development team and started to get involved in lithium battery electrolysis. The field of liquid development and production.

At the beginning of our work, the two projects of the positive electrode and the electrolyte were done at the same time. Later, we temporarily put down the positive electrode material and concentrated on the electrolyte project. Because at that time, the electrolyte is more suitable for the genes of Tianshen at that stage, and it is more likely to constitute a competitive advantage in the market. Xu Jinfu introduced.

After locking the business target in lithium battery electrolyte materials, Xu Jinfu immediately decided to build his own lithium hexafluorophosphate production line. This highly forward-looking decision made Tianci materials the most direct beneficiary in the period of explosive growth in the industry. The company's profit also hit a new high with the soaring price of lithium hexafluorophosphate.

This process of cutting into new areas and achieving success, now looking back, perhaps someone will be surprised by Xu Jinfu's insight into the industry. Interestingly, he said that the huge success of the lithium battery materials business at this stage far exceeded his original expectations, but at that time, the decision to turn to lithium battery materials was natural, not impulsive.

He explained that lithium battery materials, like daily chemical materials, are logically similar products in fine chemical materials, using similar tools, research and development methods and service thinking. It is also because of the technical connection that the accumulation of Tianci materials in the field of daily chemical materials has helped the success of the electrolyte business to a certain extent. On January 23, 2014, Tianci Materials was successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

On January 10, 2014, Tianci material executives took photos of the online roadshow on the panoramic network.

Old craftsman who only works as a fine chemical

When I saw Xu Jinfu, the most profound impression of him was the entrepreneur who had "artisan spirit." Indeed, for this industry that he has been deeply involved in for more than 30 years, his business sense is extremely sensitive, and this can be seen from a series of foreign cooperation and acquisitions he led.

From the acquisition of Jiangsu Ronghui to ensure the supply of lithium carbonate, to the capital increase holding Jiangxi Aide to complete the positive electrode material layout and electrolyte formula product research and development capabilities, and then to the use of sulfuric acid to produce iron phosphate while producing hydrogen, Tianci materials in the lithium battery material integrity The industrial chain is becoming a reality bit by bit.

More importantly, the construction of the first batch of LiFSi materials and the capital contribution of Zhangjiagang Mujit's leading electrolyte flame retardant technology will help the lithium battery electrolyte of Tianci Materials achieve quality, durability and safety. Enhance to further establish the leading position in the industry.

In addition to the selection of the project, Xu Jinfu's "artisan spirit" is reflected in his focus. When talking about the "cross-border" field of the new energy vehicle production business and the lithium battery assembly production business, Xu Jinfu said that the strength of the Tianci material is in the material field, so the field outside the chemical industry will not be considered for the time being. In the medium to long-term future, Tianci will continue to focus on the two areas of daily chemical and lithium battery materials. "Because the light is these two pieces, it is enough to support the development of God's gift for the next five to ten years." Xu Jinfu said.

30% market share is enough, I don't eat alone."

"In the early stage, doing business in theory is like the process of climbing a mountain. It is really difficult to see what happens in the middle of the mountain under the mountain." Talking about the process of opening up the market, Xu Jinfu summed it up. Because of the unknown at the foot of the mountain, Xu Jinfu must be steady at every step of the business. From simple to difficult, from easy to complex, the daily-made materials of Tianci Materials are also from the supporting services, to the provision of formulas, to the sales of one product, and finally successfully put the demanding multiple large customers one by one. .

In the experience of many multinational clients, Xu Jinfu is most impressed by the ** major customer of the Tianci material daily business - P&G. In the face of the godsend materials before P&G, it was turning to multinational companies in the market strategy. In order to win the ** customers in this field, Xu Jinfu's company became a "small fan" of P&G.

In addition to actively communicating with P&G and trying to meet P&G's product requirements, they also have an important strategy to compete with other P&G suppliers, that is, to compete and cooperate. The main point of this strategy is that when these suppliers produce certain products, Tianci materials distinguish them for customers and OEM them, so that Tiansei gets the profit of the production line, and these “friends” also save the construction line. On the other hand, Godsend will exchange technology with each other in the process of communicating with them. Through such cooperation, both parties have learned new technologies and further improved their technical reserves.

With this successful strategy, the daily chemical business of Tianci Materials has achieved steady growth in the past few years. The income of the daily chemical sector has also doubled from more than 200 million in 2007 to 525 million in 2016. .

"My understanding of competition has no benign and malignant concept. This is what economists like to use. In the process of competition, there will always be a winner, and there must be a boss in an industry. The status of the boss in the industry has decided, then the competition in this industry has become benign." Talking about the competition, Xu Jinfu's attitude is to go with the flow. Industry leaders who emerged from full-fledged competition will naturally become the maintenance force for benign competition in this industry.

In addition, he believes that competition is always there. After a certain degree, the market parties will maintain a relatively stable share ratio and move forward. And a fully developed and competitive market cannot create a big situation. Therefore, his goal for Godsend is to not be a monopolist with a market share of 100%, but to be a 30% industry leader.

He said: "I think that many domestic enterprises have such a big problem, that is, they always want to eat a single food. In fact, this is not right. To be the boss in a market, I think the 30% share is enough. ”