“Caída en desgracia” vacunas estrella con descuentos y aumento de capital, magnates inmobiliarios invierten 20 mil millones de yuanes, ¿podrá Wuhan Biotech revertir la tendencia y dar la vuelta a la situación?

The reporter of this newspaper (chinatimes.net.cn) , 于娜, Beijing

What kind of story will a real estate boss taking over a vaccine star company bring to the capital market?

Recently, domestic vaccine leader Watson Biotech (300142.SZ) suddenly issued a package of announcements, confirming a fund-raising private placement transaction that has attracted widespread market attention: the company will issue to Beijing Tengyun Xinwo Biotechnology Partnership (Limited Partnership) a targeted issuance of no more than 208 million shares at a price of 9.63 yuan per share, raising total funds of no more than 2.003 billion yuan, all of which will be used to supplement the company’s working capital. Compared with the closing price of 12.28 yuan per share before trading suspension, the discount in this private placement amounts to 21.6%, and this “discount” move immediately sparked heated discussion in the capital market.

Even more noteworthy is that the sole subscriber of this private placement, Tengyun Xinwo, has behind it Huang Tao, the leader of one of China’s top private capital groups, Century Jinyuan Group. In the 2025 Hurun Rich List, the net worth of Huang Ruolun and the Huang Tao family is 35.5 billion yuan. This real estate tycoon will, through this private placement, become the actual controller of Watson Biotech in one move, putting an end to the situation in which this vaccine leader has had no real controller for 16 years since listing. After resuming trading on March 19, Watson Biotech’s share price saw a surge with high volume followed by a pullback, and differences between bulls and bears were fully exposed. The capital market is filled with doubts and expectations about this cross-industry combination of “real estate + vaccines.”

However, from the perspective of the vaccine industry, as the domestic first enterprise to independently develop a 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine and the first batch of leaders to achieve commercial commercialization of mRNA vaccines, why would Watson Biotech willingly “discount” its private placement and hand over control? Can the entry of this real estate boss inject new momentum into a vaccine giant mired in a performance downturn, or will cross-industry barriers trigger new hidden risks instead?

A dilemma or an inevitable choice

In the capital market, a discounted private placement is not uncommon, but Watson Biotech’s discount rate of more than 20% still surprised many investors.

As an old and prominent leader in the vaccine industry, Watson Biotech once achieved rapid growth by relying on core products such as the 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine and the 2-valent HPV vaccine. From 2019 to 2022, the company’s revenue surged from 1.121 billion yuan to 5.086 billion yuan, and its net profit attributable to the parent increased from 142 million yuan to 729 million yuan, at one point becoming a “vaccine star” in the capital market. But since 2023, the company’s performance has been under continuous pressure, falling into a growth bottleneck.

（Source: Watson Biotech 2024 annual report）

The financial statements show that in 2023, Watson Biotech’s revenue fell to 4.114 billion yuan, and net profit attributable to the parent was 419 million yuan. In 2024, revenue further declined to 2.821 billion yuan, and net profit attributable to the parent was only 142 million yuan, a year-on-year drop of more than 66%. The 2025 performance forecast shows that the company expects revenue of 2.4 billion—2.43 billion yuan, down from 2.821 billion yuan in the same period of the previous year. Net profit attributable to the parent is expected to be 160 million—190 million yuan, up 13%—34% year-on-year. Non-recurring items’ net profit attributable to the parent is expected to decline 9%—22% to 85 million—99 million yuan. The growth in net profit attributable to the parent mainly benefits from non-recurring gains/losses and the growth in overseas vaccine revenue, yet the company’s overall performance slump has not shown a clear improvement.

Behind Watson Biotech’s performance decline are multiple pressures, including intensifying industry competition, weak growth of core products, and high R&D spending. Since Watson Biotech’s 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine was launched in 2020, it rapidly captured market share. In the early stage after listing, its gross margin was as high as 93.6%. But as similar products from peers such as Zhifei Biotech and CanSino Biologics were successively launched, competition in the market entered a fierce stage, and a brutal price war unfolded, directly causing this product’s gross margin to decline year by year. In 2022, when Watson Biotech’s 2-valent HPV vaccine (Weizhi Hui) first entered government-funded procurement, during the procurement in Nanjing, Jiangsu, it won the bid at a price of 246 yuan per dose, only 75% of the 329 yuan per dose for a comparable product from Wantai Biotech in the same period. By the 2024 centralized procurement under the National Immunization Program in Shandong Province, the unit price of this product fell to 27.5 yuan per dose, a reduction of more than 88% from its initial pricing of 329 yuan per dose. At the same time, Watson Biotech has kept its annual R&D expenses at a relatively high level for the 9-valent HPV vaccine and mRNA shingles vaccine, further aggravating capital pressure.

From the perspective of cash flow, Watson Biotech’s funding situation is also not optimistic. The 2025 interim report shows that Watson Biotech’s total assets were 14.003 billion yuan and total liabilities were 3.236 billion yuan, and its asset-liability ratio dropped to 23.11%. Although the asset-liability ratio is not excessively high, the net cash flow from operating activities was only 117 million yuan, while the net cash flow from financing activities was -1.202 billion yuan, indicating significant pressure on cash recovery. This private placement will raise 2 billion yuan, all of which will be used to supplement working capital. It can effectively ease the company’s funding tightness, ensure the R&D progress of core pipelines, and support the production and market promotion of existing products, thereby providing funding support for the company’s performance recovery.

In addition, since listing in 2010, Watson Biotech has consistently been in a state of having no controlling shareholder and no real controller, with a highly dispersed shareholding structure. At the end of the third quarter of 2025, Watson Biotech’s largest shareholder at that time was the E Fund’s ChiNext ETF, holding only 2.16%; the direct shareholding ratio of founder and chairman Li Yunchun was only 1.70%; another founder Liu Junhui’s direct shareholding ratio was 1.81%. Li Yunchun’s direct plus indirect shareholding ratio was not clearly disclosed, and the shareholding dispersion characteristics were significant.

A former senior executive of the listed company and a medical market expert, Zhang Biao, told reporters of The Huaxia Times that shareholding dispersion has caused Watson Biotech to face long-term problems such as low decision-making efficiency, strategic wavering, and shareholder in-fighting. Introducing Huang Tao as the real controller through this private placement could fundamentally change this situation.

As for why it is a discounted private placement, an investor who has long focused on pharmaceutical stocks told reporters of The Huaxia Times that this is a standard operation for locked-price private placements. According to the CSRC’s “Administrative Measures for the Registration of Securities Issuance and Registration of Listed Companies,” the floor price of a locked-price private placement must not be lower than 80% of the average price over the 20 trading days preceding the pricing benchmark date. The private placement price of 9.63 yuan per share in this case is calculated exactly based on this rule. This private placement adopts a “locked-price” model, with a lock-up period as long as 18 months. The subscriber, Tengyun Xinwo, must not transfer the shares it subscribes for within 18 months. For long-term investors, the discount is a reasonable compensation for the locked funds and the risks they assume. After all, within an 18-month lock-up period, there are many uncertainties in the market, and the share price may fluctuate. The discounted portion effectively serves as a risk hedge for investors.

Can cross-industry marriage achieve a win-win?

It cannot be denied that Huang Tao’s entry can bring short-term positives to Watson Biotech in difficulties, such as easing funding pressures. However, this cross-industry marriage of “real estate + vaccines” also hides multiple risks that are worth being highly vigilant about.

The most core risk of cross-industry entry lies in the “mismatch” caused by industry barriers. The vaccine industry is a typical technology-intensive and strictly regulated sector. It has long R&D cycles, high technical barriers, and stringent quality control requirements. From candidate vaccine R&D, to clinical trials, to approval for commercialization, every link requires a professional technical team, rich industry experience, and a mature operating system. It is absolutely not something that can quickly be overcome by relying solely on capital.

Zhang Biao believes that even if Huang Tao and his core team have long focused on the real estate field, and even though Century Jinyuan has a layout in the big-health sector, it has not involved vaccine core R&D and operations. Therefore, there is a lack of core technical reserves and professional management experience in the vaccine industry. It is likely difficult for them to provide effective guidance on Watson Biotech’s key aspects such as R&D, production, and quality control. The reason Watson Biotech has been able to stand in the vaccine field mainly relies on its R&D team built through years of deep cultivation. If Huang Tao’s team rushes to step into the company’s daily operations, or even interferes with R&D direction decision-making, then once core personnel leave, it will directly affect the progress of major pipelines such as the 9-valent HPV vaccine and the mRNA shingles vaccine, further dragging down the company’s performance recovery.

As an investor focused on capital operations, whether Huang Tao can become a “firefighting team member” is also a question. Huang Tao is the eldest son of the well-known Fujian businessman Huang Ruolun. In 2018, he took over his father’s role as the group’s real controller. Previously, he already held controlling stakes in two listed companies, Anhui Tong Technology and Anyaner. However, after his control of these two companies, their performance did not achieve substantial improvement; instead, they fell into sustained stagnation. Among them, Anyaner has been loss-making for five consecutive years since 2020, which makes investors worry that Watson Biotech might become another “new carrier” for his capital operations, rather than truly upgrading its business.

The potential minefield of this cross-industry marriage also includes imbalanced shareholder interests and governance risks. After this private placement, Huang Tao holds 14.46% of the voting rights through Tengyun Xinwo and parties acting in concert, becoming Watson Biotech’s absolute controlling shareholder, while founder Li Yunchun directly holds only 1.70%, an extremely low ownership ratio. Although the two parties have agreed that Li Yunchun is responsible for daily operations, given the huge gap in equity, if disagreements arise between Huang Tao and Li Yunchun’s team on core issues such as company strategy, R&D investment, and market layout, Li Yunchun’s team would be unable to form effective checks and constraints. This would easily lead to new shareholder in-fighting and repeat the governance predicament caused by Watson Biotech’s historically dispersed shareholding.

In addition, the feasibility of industrial synergy also involves many uncertainties. Although Century Jinyuan has laid out a big-health sector, it mainly focuses on fields such as medical devices and health and elderly care services, and its synergy with vaccine R&D and production is relatively weak. Whether the so-called “regional advantages” and “capital operation advantages” can truly be transformed into Watson Biotech’s core competitiveness still needs to be tested over time.

Zhang Biao said that whether this cross-industry marriage can avoid risks and achieve a win-win outcome not only tests Huang Tao’s team’s cross-industry adaptability, but also depends on whether it can respect the rules of the vaccine industry and adhere to a professional operations bottom line. All of this awaits further testing by the capital market.

责任编辑：姜雨晴 主编：陈岩鹏

大量资讯、精准解读，尽在新浪财经APP