Ren Yuanlin, the founder of Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, is taking over the world’s biggest supplier of lithium battery anode materials.
Battery specialist Shanshan Corp is being acquired by a consortium led by Ren, after a court ordered its debt-laden Shanghai-based parent firm Shanshan Group into asset restructuring.
Ren’s investment group is paying RMB3.2bn ($450m) to take a majority stake of 23.3% equity in Shanshan.
Shanshan claims to have a 21% global market share of the lithium battery anode materials sector, as well as a leading 30% global market share in the manufacturing of display panel polarising film.
Yangzijiang traces its roots to Jiangyin Shipbuilding Factory, established in 1956 as a small state-owned yard on the Yangtze River.
Ren joined the yard in the 1970s as a young technician and worked his way up through the ranks. In 1999, amid China’s wider state-owned enterprise reforms, he led the management buyout that transformed the yard into a private enterprise — effectively founding the modern Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group.
Under his leadership, the company grew from a small repair yard into China’s largest private shipbuilder. It listed on the Singapore Exchange in 2007, making it the first Chinese shipyard to go public overseas.
