At 9:30 am on July 27, 2026, Changxin Technology debuted on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board.
The IPO price was 8.66 yuan, the opening price was 49.50 yuan, and the increase was 471.59%. Calculated based on the post-IPO 668.81 billion shares, the total market value was 31.1 trillion yuan, exceeding Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, becoming the A-share company with the highest market value. By noon that day, the stock price had reached 54.65 yuan, and the total market value had once approached 36.6 trillion yuan; the closing transaction volume was 141.187 billion yuan, setting a new record for the single-day turnover of a single stock in the A-share market.
Reportedly, 9.4288 million households participated in online subscriptions, with a winning rate of 0.4714%. With each winning ticket of 500 shares, selling at the opening could earn 20,000 yuan. Changxin raised 57.919 billion yuan in the initial public offering, the largest IPO on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board to date.
After the bell-ringing, people quickly calculated the net worth of existing shareholders. How much is the holding value of the Hefei State-owned Assets, Alibaba, and the employee stock ownership platform.
But one name was missing from the list, Country Garden.
In 2021, it put out 2 billion yuan to acquire about 2.24% equity in Changxin, which was later diluted through several rounds of capital increases to 1.56%. In December 2024, Country Garden sold all of this equity to Hefei State-owned Assets for 20 billion yuan. On the day of Changxin's debut, the value of the stake Country Garden had once held was approximately 50 billion yuan.
Five years ago, it made a very difficult judgment. Nineteen months ago, it had to sell off this judgment.
Country Garden saw the industry's potential but miscalculated how long it could wait.
Why Would a Home Seller Study Hard Tech
Country Garden Venture Capital was established in 2019.
A year before its establishment, Country Garden proposed to transform into a "comprehensive high-tech enterprise." At that time, it was still one of the most cash-rich private enterprises in China. Its real estate business could provide significant internal funds, and the group's brand could help this new investment institution access projects that smaller institutions could not negotiate. It was not short of money at that time, but it lacked a path other than real estate.
Country Garden's first exit from a hard technology investment was a rocket.
In 2019, the team spent nearly half a year interviewing domestic commercial aerospace companies to understand the industry's bottlenecks. Remote sensing, communication, and navigation all require satellite launches, with the bottleneck being in launch capacity. In the end, they chose Blue Arrow Aerospace, which was positioning itself as a medium to large liquid rocket at the time, and in December made a exclusive $500 million Series C investment. Later, they led two more rounds consecutively, increasing Blue Arrow's valuation from about 30 billion yuan to over 100 billion yuan.
This event illustrates how Country Garden approaches investments.
It brought the method of building houses into venture capital. Real estate development is already a business highly dependent on the supply chain, and Country Garden is most familiar with how to break down a very long chain and find the most critical nodes.
In investments, this method was given two names. The core company on the industrial chain is called the "Chain Owner," and the bottleneck is called the "Chain Blocker." Before entering a new industry, the team must conduct a complete industry research. Without industry research, the project should not proceed to investment decisions. The first semiconductor investment was in SMIC, which belonged to the "Chain Owner" category; going towards the manufacturing end, Changxin was the type of unavoidable "Chain Blocker" company.
Country Garden's fund arrangement is also unique. Most RMB funds have a term limit, and they must exit after seven or ten years. Country Garden's venture capital mainly uses the group's own funds, which the managing partner, Niu Ruolei, referred to as "perpetual capital" at the time, theoretically with no time limit. It adopts a dumbbell strategy, investing in very early-stage technology projects on one end and nearly pre-IPO super unicorns with single investments of over 10 billion yuan on the other end, rarely participating in the highly competitive growth stage in between.
By early 2022, Country Garden's venture capital had independently completed investments in over 90 projects, producing 26 unicorns and 10 listed companies; 52% of the investment amount was placed in the field of advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, and carbon neutrality. The list includes Changxin, Blue Arrow, SMIC, Biren Technology, BYD Semiconductor, Silan Microelectronics, Honeycomb Energy, and Discovery Technology.
Why Invested 20 Billion in Changxin
The DRAM produced by Changxin is the memory used in computers, smartphones, and servers.
The wafer fab must constantly purchase equipment, change processes, retain engineers, and withstand drastic price fluctuations in storage. By the end of 2024, Changxin had accumulated about 38.52 billion yuan in losses. Before going public, it already had three 12-inch wafer fabs and nearly 20,000 employees, including over 6,000 R&D personnel.
By 2025, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron together still held over 90% of the global DRAM market. In the semiconductor industry, there are many areas where a smart small team can excel, but DRAM is not one of them. Design capabilities, manufacturing processes, yield rates, equipment, and funding—all are necessary to achieve scale.
Changxin was established in 2016. On September 20, 2019, it announced the launch of its self-developed manufacturing project, with the debut of 8Gb DDR4, demonstrating that a mainland Chinese company had finally crossed the threshold of scaling DRAM production.
So when Country Garden entered the scene in 2021, Changxin had already significantly reduced its technical risks, with the most expensive aspects of scaling, iteration, and market competition still ahead. This placed Changxin right at the end of Country Garden's large-scale investment "dumbbell."
On July 5, 2021, Country Garden Venture Capital in Haikou and Changxin, along with other shareholders, signed a Series B financing agreement. The unified price for Series B was RMB 2.219 per RMB of registered capital, with an initial financing limit of RMB 26 billion. Country Garden contributed RMB 2 billion, subscribed to approximately RMB 9.013 billion of registered capital, and held a post-investment stake of 2.24%.
In the same round, there were also participants such as the National Large Fund Phase II, Anhui Provincial Investment, National Manufacturing Investment Fund, China Merchants Bank, Xiaomi, Midea, and other institutions and enterprises. In December of the same year, the financing limit was further increased to RMB 36 billion.
From Ziguang Zhaorui's chip design, to Changxin's wafer manufacturing, and then to Shenghe Jinwei's packaging, Country Garden Venture Capital has filled in each segment of the semiconductor industry chain. Investing in Changxin is because they believe manufacturing is a key "link blockage" in China's semiconductor industry.
China is a major global DRAM demand market, with mainland China almost starting from scratch in terms of scale supply at that time. As long as Changxin survived, its expansion alone could rapidly strengthen it.
This assessment was later proven to be quite accurate. By the fourth quarter of 2025, Changxin's global market share based on sales revenue had risen to 7.67%, making it the top player in China and the fourth globally. In the first quarter of 2026, revenue reached RMB 50.8 billion, with a net profit attributable to the parent company of RMB 24.762 billion. It took them many years to transform "able to manufacture" into "able to sell," and they also caught the wave of AI servers driving memory demand to new heights.
‘Perpetual Capital’ Suddenly Had a Term
2021 was the year of Changxin's Series B financing and also the peak of China's real estate sales.
In that year, a total of 1.794 billion square meters of commercial housing were sold nationwide, with sales reaching RMB 18.19 trillion. By 2025, the sales area of newly built commercial housing had plummeted to only 0.881 billion square meters, almost halved in four years. At the end of 2021, the national population was 1.4126 billion, and the following year, negative growth began.
Amid the ebb tide, Country Garden is the first to bear the brunt. In 2021, 68% of its sales came from third- and fourth-tier cities. These cities once gave Country Garden the broadest market and made it more difficult to turn around when demand contracted.
At its peak, Country Garden's equity sales amounted to 558 billion yuan, with receipts of 502.2 billion yuan and cash available for use of 181.3 billion yuan. Three years later, equity sales had dropped to 47.2 billion yuan, with a net loss attributable to equity holders of 32.8 billion yuan and total borrowings of 253.5 billion yuan. Total cash at the end of the year was 29.9 billion yuan, of which 23.5 billion yuan was restricted, and only 6.362 billion yuan was truly classified as cash and cash equivalents.
The 2 billion yuan on Country Garden's books in 2021 is an industrial investment that can wait for ten years. By 2024, it will represent nearly one-third of year-end free cash flow.
The prepayments received at the sales offices do not truly belong to the developer. Behind each prepayment is a set of undelivered houses, and the money will ultimately be converted into steel, concrete, elevators, and keys.
From 2022 to November 2025, Country Garden will have delivered approximately 1.8 million housing units. In order to hand over these houses, it has been selling equities, hotels, bulk assets, and even official vehicles since 2022, raising over 65 billion yuan. The 2 billion yuan from Changxin is part of this.
On May 31, 2024, Bloomberg reported that Country Garden Venture Capital was seeking a buyer for Changxin equity, with an asking price of around 2 billion yuan. The deal was still under review at the time and might not necessarily be completed. Country Garden subsequently responded that the group was evaluating its asset portfolio and potential disposal opportunities to optimize its asset-liability structure.
In June, Changxin completed a new round of funding, with 12 investors subscribing to 10.8 billion yuan at 2.61 yuan per share. At this price, the value of Country Garden's stake exceeds 2.3 billion yuan.
By December 27, Seller Hui Bi Wu No. 5, Buyer Hefei Jianchang, and Changxin Technology signed a share transfer agreement, with the final price still at 2 billion yuan, approximately 2.22 yuan per share. Hefei Jianchang is directly owned by Hefei Urban Construction Investment Holding Group with a 87.45% stake, and the ultimate beneficial owner is Hefei State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Taking over Country Garden's stake is the state capital of the city where Changxin is located.
This is no longer a calm investment institution choosing the best exit window. Both the buyer and the seller know that the seller needs cash, and the last dignity that Country Garden can hold onto is to get back the principal in full.
The payment arrangement in the agreement also reflects this urgency. Changxin is required to provide the post-sealed new shareholder register on the tenth working day, and Hefei Jianchang will make a one-time full payment upon receipt of the register and payment notice. Hefei Jianchang also provides joint guarantees for 99.985% of the price, with a maximum guarantee of 1.9997 billion yuan. If the agreement cannot be completed within 180 days, the compliant party can terminate the agreement. Other existing shareholders will waive their preemptive rights either explicitly or implicitly.
Evergrande's announcement specified that the intended use of this ¥2 billion was for general working capital, mainly for project construction such as property delivery. Changxin's equity has transformed into on-site construction funds.
From the equity changes disclosed in Changxin's prospectus, Evergrande was the only external early-stage investor who completely sold off its holdings before the IPO without waiting. Some conducted small transfers, some moved their shares to related platforms, but only Evergrande truly exited its position.
Twenty-four City
In late 1958, a large number of cadres, workers, and equipment from Shenyang's Factory 111 migrated to the southwest. Some sold their houses and furniture, took trains and ships with their families, and traveled thousands of kilometers to Chengdu. In January 1959, Factory 420 was officially established. It later became a crucial aviation engine factory in the southwest, with factory buildings, dormitories, schools, and canteens connected, and the lives of generations revolving around the machines.
Half a century later, Chengdu's eastern suburbs adjusted its industrial layout. The original site of Factory 420 was handed over to real estate development, and the former factory area turned into the residential complex "Twenty-four City."
Hearing that a state-owned factory with tens of thousands of employees was to be transformed into residential housing within a year, Jia Zhangke felt that there was "so much to talk about" in this matter, so he filmed "Twenty-four City." In the movie, people sit in front of the old factory building, discussing the production line, collective dormitories, and the vanished way of life.
Evergrande was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on April 20, 2007. The IPO price was HK$5.38, and it closed at HK$7.27 on the first day of trading. The public offering was oversubscribed 255.7 times, freezing funds of approximately HK$330 billion. Yang Huiyan, who was not yet thirty years old, held 58.19% of the shares, and real estate created a new Chinese richest person that morning.
Factory 420 became Twenty-four City, Evergrande emerged as a new star in the capital market, all in the same era. At that time, there was a strong sense of direction in the city: the old factory represented the past, and commercial housing represented the future; the land under the production line was freed up and built into residences, only then was the value truly rediscovered.
Evergrande grew up in this direction. It connected land, population mobility, and pre-sale funds into a massive machine, reaching over two hundred cities from Shunde. By 2019, it tried to send the privately accumulated capital in real estate to rockets, chips, and new energy.
The money earned from the old industry should have originally gone to support immature new industries. It's just that the old cycle retreated too quickly, and the new cycle arrived too slowly.
On July 27, 2026, the bell rang again. This time, a wafer manufacturer stood on the stage.
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