"Fallen" vaccine star receives discounted private placement, real estate tycoon invests 2 billion yuan, can Watson Bio turn the tide?

This paper (chinatimes.net.cn) reporter 于娜 Beijing report

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

Recently, domestic vaccine leader Innovax (Watson) Bio (300142.SZ) suddenly released a package of announcements, locking in a private placement transaction that has drawn significant market attention: the company will issue up to 208 million shares at a price of 9.63 yuan per share to Beijing Tengyun Xinwo Biotechnology Partnership (Limited Partnership), raising no more than 2.003 billion yuan in total, all of which will be used to replenish the company’s working capital. Compared with the closing price of 12.28 yuan per share before the suspension, the discount rate of this private placement is as high as 21.6%, and this “discount” operation immediately sparked heated discussion in the capital market.

Even more noteworthy is that the sole subscriber for this private placement, Tengyun Xinwo, behind whom stands one of China’s top private capital groups—Huang Tao, the helm of Century Golden Resources Group. In the 2025 Hurun Hurun Rich List, Huang Ru… (or Huang Tao) and the Huang Tao family’s net worth is 35.5 billion yuan. This real-estate tycoon will, through this private placement, become the actual controller of Innovax (Watson) Bio, ending the situation of this vaccine leader having no actual controller for the past 16 years since listing. After the resumption of trading on March 19, Innovax (Watson) Bio’s stock price showed a high-volume surge followed by a pullback; divergences between bulls and bears were fully exposed. The capital market is full of questions and expectations about this “real estate + vaccines” cross-border combination.

However, from the perspective of the vaccine industry, as a leading company that is China’s first domestically developed 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine and the first batch to commercialize an mRNA vaccine, why is Innovax (Watson) Bio willing to accept a “discount” private placement and give up control? Can the real-estate boss’s takeover inject new development momentum into a vaccine giant mired in a performance downturn, or will the cross-industry barriers trigger new risks?

Dilemma or inevitable choice

In the capital market, discounted private placements are not unusual, but the fact that the discount this time exceeds 20% still surprises many investors.

As an established vaccine industry leader, Innovax (Watson) Bio previously achieved rapid growth through core products such as its 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine and 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 shareholders rose 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 faced sustained pressure and fallen into a growth bottleneck.

(Source: Innovax (Watson) Bio 2024 annual report)

The financial report data shows that in 2023, Innovax (Watson) Bio’s revenue fell to 4.114 billion yuan, and its net profit attributable to shareholders was 419 million yuan. In 2024, revenue further declined to 2.821 billion yuan, and net profit attributable to shareholders was only 142 million yuan, down more than 66% year on year. The 2025 performance forecast shows that the company expects to achieve revenue of 2.4 billion–2.43 billion yuan, down from 2.821 billion yuan in the same period last year. Net profit attributable to shareholders is expected to be 160 million–190 million yuan, up 13%–34% year on year; non-recurring gains and overseas vaccine income are expected to be the main reasons for the growth in net profit attributable to shareholders. The company’s net profit attributable to shareholders excluding non-recurring items is forecast to decline 9%–22% to 85 million–99 million yuan. The overall downturn in the company’s performance has not yet improved significantly.

Behind Innovax (Watson) Bio’s performance decline are multiple pressures, including intensified industry competition, weak growth in core products, and high levels of R&D spending. After Innovax (Watson) Bio’s 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine was launched in 2020, it quickly captured market share. In the initial period after launch, its gross margin was as high as 93.6%. But as peer products from competitors such as Zhifei Bio and Sinopharm/Can-Tai Bio were gradually launched, market competition turned extremely fierce, with brutal price wars, directly causing the gross margin of this product to decline year by year. In 2022, when Innovax (Watson) Bio’s 2-valent HPV vaccine (Weizehui) first entered government-funded procurement in Jiangsu’s Nanjing, it won the bid at 246 yuan per dose, only 75% of the 329 yuan per dose price for a comparable product from Wantai Bio at the same time. By the centralized procurement in 2024 in Shandong Province under the national immunization program, the unit price of this product fell to 27.5 yuan per dose—an over-88% decline compared with its launch-era pricing of 329 yuan per dose. Meanwhile, Innovax (Watson) Bio’s annual R&D expenses for its 9-valent HPV vaccine and mRNA shingles vaccine have remained at high levels, further exacerbating capital pressure.

From the cash flow perspective, Innovax (Watson) Bio’s funding situation is also not optimistic. The 2025 interim report shows that the company has total assets of 14.003 billion yuan and total liabilities of 3.236 billion yuan, with its asset-liability ratio dropping to 23.11%. Although the asset-liability ratio is not high, the net cash flow from operating activities is only 117 million yuan. Net cash flow from financing activities is -1.202 billion yuan, meaning there is significant pressure to recover cash. The 2 billion yuan raised in this private placement will be used entirely to replenish working capital, which can effectively ease the company’s tight liquidity situation, ensure the R&D progress of its core pipelines, support the production of existing products and their market promotion, and provide funding support for the company’s performance recovery.

In addition, since listing in 2010, Innovax (Watson) Bio has always been in a state with no controlling shareholder and no actual controller, with a highly dispersed equity structure. By the end of the third quarter of 2025, the largest shareholder at that time was E Fund’s ChiNext ETF, holding only 2.16%. The founder and chairman Li Yunchun’s direct shareholding was only 1.70%. Another founder, Liu Junhui, directly held 1.81%. Li Yunchun’s direct plus indirect shareholding was not clearly disclosed, and the equity dispersion is evident.

A former senior executive of a listed company and medical market expert Zhang Biao told reporters from The Huaxia Times that the dispersion of shareholding has caused Innovax (Watson) Bio to face long-term problems such as low decision-making efficiency, strategic wavering, and shareholder in-fighting. By introducing Huang Tao as the actual controller through this private placement, it can completely change this situation.

As for why the company is conducting a discounted private placement, an investor who has long followed pharmaceutical stocks told reporters from The Huaxia Times that this is standard practice for locked-price private placements. According to the CSRC’s “Administrative Measures for the Registration of Securities Issuance by Listed Companies,” the floor price for a locked-price private placement may not be lower than 80% of the average price of the 20 trading days prior to the pricing benchmark date. The private placement price of 9.63 yuan per share for Innovax (Watson) Bio was calculated exactly according to this rule. This private placement adopts a “locked-price” model, with a lock-up period as long as 18 months. The subscriber, Tengyun Xinwo, may not transfer the shares it subscribes for within 18 months. For long-term investors, the discount is a reasonable compensation for the capital locked up and the risks they take on. After all, during an 18-month lock-up period, there are many uncertainties in the market; the stock price may fluctuate, and the discounted portion effectively serves as risk hedging for investors.

Can cross-industry marriage achieve win-win results?

It is undeniable that Huang Tao’s entry can bring positive effects to Innovax (Watson) Bio in the short term, such as alleviating funding stress. But this cross-industry “real estate + vaccines” marriage also hides multiple risks that deserve heightened vigilance.

The most core risk of cross-industry integration lies in the “failure to adapt” caused by industry barriers. The vaccine industry is a typical technology-intensive and tightly regulated sector, with long R&D cycles, high technical barriers, and stringent quality control requirements. From candidate vaccine R&D, clinical trials, to approval for launch, every link requires specialized technical teams, extensive industry experience, and a mature operating system. It is absolutely not something that can be quickly achieved by relying on funding alone.

Zhang Biao believes that although Huang Tao and his core team have long been deeply involved in the real estate sector, even if Century Golden Resources has laid out a big-health track, it has not involved vaccine core R&D and operations. The company lacks core technical reserves and professional management experience in the vaccine industry, so it is unlikely to provide effective guidance on Innovax (Watson) Bio’s key areas such as R&D, production, and quality control. The reason Innovax (Watson) Bio has been able to stand in the vaccine field fundamentally relies on its R&D team cultivated over many years. If Huang Tao’s team is eager to step into the company’s day-to-day operations, or even intervene in decision-making on R&D directions, once core talent leaves, 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 Minnan businessman Huang Rulun. In 2018, he took over his father and became the actual controller of the group. Previously, he controlled two listed companies, Wantong Technology and Anai’er. However, after his control, neither of these companies achieved substantive improvement in performance; instead, they fell into sustained sluggishness. Among them, Anai’er has suffered losses for five consecutive years since 2020, which makes investors worry that Innovax (Watson) Bio could become another “new vehicle” for his capital operations, rather than truly achieving business upgrading.

An imbalance of shareholder interests and governance risks are potential trouble spots in this cross-industry marriage. After this private placement, Huang Tao, through Tengyun Xinwo and concerted action persons, holds 14.46% of voting rights, becoming Innovax (Watson) Bio’s absolute controlling shareholder, while the founder Li Yunchun directly holds only 1.70%, with an extremely low shareholding ratio. Although both sides agreed that Li Yunchun would be responsible for day-to-day operations, given the huge difference in equity, if disagreements arise between Huang Tao and Li Yunchun’s teams on core issues such as company strategy, R&D investment, and market layout, Li Yunchun’s team will find it difficult to form effective checks and constraints. This is likely to trigger new shareholder in-fighting and repeat the governance predicament caused by the previously dispersed shareholding structure at Innovax (Watson) Bio.

In addition, the feasibility of industrial synergy also has many uncertainties. Century Golden Resources may have laid out a big-health track, but it mainly focuses on sectors such as medical devices and health/eldercare services, with relatively weak synergy with vaccine R&D and production. Whether the so-called “regional advantages” and “capital operation advantages” can truly be transformed into Innovax (Watson) Bio’s core competitiveness still needs to be tested over time.

Zhang Biao said whether this cross-industry marriage can avoid risks and achieve win-win results not only tests Huang Tao’s team’s ability to adapt across industries, but also depends on whether it can respect the rules of the vaccine industry and stick to the professional operations bottom line—and all of this remains to be further tested by the capital market.

责任编辑：姜雨晴 主编：陈岩鹏

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