Huang Wei, founder of Wanguo Data, received new financing.
On March 26th, the company announced that it had received $587 million in financing for its international business, equivalent to approximately RMB 4.2 billion.
Wanguo Data is the largest third-party IDC service provider in China, established for 23 years.
Its net income in 2023 was about 10 billion yuan, with a net loss of 4.285 billion yuan, an increase of 3 billion yuan compared to the previous year.
Increasing revenue without increasing profits, this data giant with assets of 74.4 billion has a market value of over HKD 9 billion.
At the age of 56, Huang Wei has rapidly transformed and accelerated his international business, aiming to win the Southeast Asian market and boost expectations.
Boots landing
Huang Wei added "new bullets".
On the same day as the performance announcement, the company announced that its international business received a financing of 587 million US dollars, equivalent to approximately 4.2 billion yuan.
The announcement states that GDS International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wanguo, has signed Series A financing contracts with multiple institutional investors.
Founded in 2022, GDS International, headquartered in Singapore, is mainly responsible for the construction, operation and development of data centers of GDS International outside Chinese Mainland.
After the transaction is completed, the global expansion of the world will receive strong financial support. GDS International's post investment valuation reached $2.3 billion.
A senior IDC industry insider told 21CBR reporters that IDC is a capital intensive industry, and "only with a continuous stream of capital inflows can it stand undefeated."
Half a month ago, this transaction went viral.
Rumors have it that Hillhouse Capital, Boyu Capital, and Dinghui Investment are in deep negotiations with three investment institutions regarding the data center business of Wanda Data outside of China, with a total investment amount ranging from 500 million to 600 million US dollars.
At that time, the attitude of all nations was cautious.
On March 11th, Huang Wei issued a notice stating that discussions were ongoing regarding potential international business transactions, but no final agreement had been signed, and it was uncertain whether the transaction would take place.
At the beginning of last year, there were rumors that in order to expand its overseas business, Wanguo Data intended to sell a minority stake to raise funds.
In Huang Wei's eyes, whether a company can obtain financing and achieve rapid development is more important than losing some management and control rights.
"I think as long as we can do a good job and make the company valuable, investors will naturally respect our team," he once said.
Second engine
In the announcement, Huang Wei made a statement.
The independent financing of international business indicates that it will operate independently and is expected to become the "second growth engine".
In the Southeast Asian market, he opened the second chapter.
Starting from 2021, Universal Data has acquired land in Johor, Malaysia and Batam, Indonesia to establish data center parks.
In August last year, Huang Wei stated in an interview with 21CBR reporters that based on the resource layout in Southeast Asia, it is possible to achieve an IT capacity of 1000 megawatts in the next two to three years, and at that time, he will "recreate a global data".
After this financing, there have also been significant personnel changes.
Huang Weidian, the current COO of the company, Jamie Khoo (Qiu Yizhu), will be transferred to serve as the CEO of GDS International, effective after the completion of Series A financing. Her original job was assigned to other executives.
Jamie Khoo, 59 years old, joined Wanguo ten years ago as Vice Chairman Financial Officer, and then spent more than 5 years in the position of COO. She is familiar with the company's business, has a financial background, and understands overseas operations.
Huang Wei praised Jamie Khoo as an extremely valuable member of the global executive team.
He needs a helper who is both steady and meticulous.
As of now, GDS International has received bookings for over 200MW of capacity from global and Chinese customers, of which over 70MW has been put into operation.
For example, in Hong Kong, China, the first self built data center of the world, Hong Kong No.1, has been put into use and has achieved nearly 100% signing.
The data center is located in Kwai Chung District, and Huang Wei hopes to build it into a bridgehead for mainland enterprises to go out and overseas enterprises to enter the mainland. The total construction area is about 23000 square meters, which can bring 18.8 MW of IT power capacity.
In addition, the construction process of Hong Kong's No. 2 data center is also accelerating.
In Malaysia, the total capacity of the data center park (Phase I) in Nusa Jaya Technology Park, Johor State, with a capacity of 69.9MW, has been fully put into operation.
Currently, Huang Wei is racing against time to expand his influence in Southeast Asia. Led by him, the company's executives frequently communicate with the local political community.
In early March, the Governor of Johor, Malaysia, led a delegation to visit Shenzhen, where executives such as Huang Wei and Qiu Yizhu came forward to receive him.
Last October, Thai Prime Minister Sretha Thavisin visited Beijing and specifically met with Qiu Yizhu to discuss investment opportunities in Thailand. At that time, Qiu Yizhu stated that Thailand was a key consideration in the company's regionalization strategy.
Waiting for inflection point
The data center is engaged in the business of collecting rent, which tests the stable operation and maintenance capabilities of manufacturers.
In 2023, the total contracted area of data centers of Universal Data increased by 40259 square meters, a year-on-year increase of 6%.
In the fourth quarter, Wan Guo received three new large orders, including two bookings from customers for data centers in Shanghai and Tianjin, as well as all bookings from a global cloud service provider for the Hong Kong No.2 data center.
Large cloud manufacturers, large Internet companies, etc. are the main customers of the World Service.
Some Internet giants set aggressive goals in the past few years, locking in 2-3 years' demand in advance, resulting in a large number of inventory orders to be digested.
Huang Wei has started adjusting his domestic market strategy. Last year, he "highly screened new orders, focused on delivering backlog orders to customers, and controlled capital expenditures."
IDC manufacturers, including Wanguo, are waiting for a turning point in China.
An insider from a top IDC manufacturer told 21CBR that the development expenses of some top cloud vendors have been increasing month on month since the second quarter of 2023, and this year may be the turning point for demand release.
"At present, big models have not brought explosive demand to data centers. Big companies such as ByteDance, Alibaba, and Baidu attach great importance to the investment in big models." The above-mentioned person stated that the trend of AIGC is unstoppable.
At the performance briefing on the 26th, senior executives from Wanda Data also mentioned that the demand prospects in the domestic market have not significantly improved, and AI will be an important catalyst.
"The demand for AI is coming, but it will take more time," it said.
When Wanguo Data went public in Hong Kong, Huang Wei was full of ambition, hoping to "create a three times larger Wanguo Data in five years than it is today.".
Contrary to expectations, within four years, the company's market value evaporated by over 90%, with a high point market loss of over 150 billion yuan.
The trend of AI is chasing Southeast Asia, whether we can achieve our goals and rebound from the bottom depends on 2024.