On March 27, Shandong Gao Holdings Group Limited (stock code: 00412.HK) released its 2023 annual results report. The report shows that as of the end of 2023, Shandong Gao Holdings achieved a net profit of HK$540 million, more than double that of the same period last year. The profit attributable to shareholders increased significantly, with earnings per share of HK$0.0025. The company’s total assets amounted to HK$72.75 billion, of which industrial assets reached HK$58.6 billion, accounting for nearly 90% of total assets. Shandong Gao Holdings has essentially completed its strategic layout focusing on two main industrial tracks: new energy and new infrastructure.
Since the second half of 2021, Shandong Gao Holdings has been promoting its strategic transformation into an emerging industry investment holding group. After acquiring a controlling stake in Shandong Gao New Energy in 2022, it has provided strong investment and management support in terms of capital, resources, brand, and mechanisms. In 2023, Shandong High-Tech New Energy achieved record highs in its main development indicators, adding 1.6GW of new energy development quotas. It also successfully won a bid for a 387.5MW wind power installed capacity project in Heze City, Shandong Province, in a competitive bidding process for centralized onshore wind power projects. Furthermore, Shandong High-Tech New Energy has successively tailored comprehensive green energy management solutions for industry leaders such as COFCO Group, SF Express, Beijing Enterprises Water Group, and Honglu Steel Structure, significantly enhancing its competitiveness and influence in the new energy industry.
While deepening its involvement in the new energy industry, Shandong High-Tech Holdings strategically invested in the US-listed company VNET at the end of last year, subscribing to US$299 million of newly issued Class A ordinary shares, acquiring a 42% stake. VNET is one of the top three data center service providers in China, operating over 50 data centers in more than 30 cities nationwide, with over 87,300 server racks, providing stable and diversified services to more than 7,000 enterprise clients. Through its strategic investment in 21Vianet, Shandong Gaotong Holdings aims to promote synergy between the green energy industry and the data center industry, creating a collaborative industrial ecosystem model integrating power generation, grid, load, and storage. This will form a closed-loop ecosystem of “green electricity + computing power” characterized by “on-demand power generation, on-demand electricity availability, reasonable pricing, and mutual benefit,” driving the transformation of high-energy-consuming data center businesses towards green and low-carbon development, optimizing the industrial ecosystem, and enhancing corporate competitiveness.
The capital market has responded positively to the effectiveness of Shandong Gaotong Holdings’ strategic transformation. In February 2024, Hang Seng Indexes Company Limited announced the inclusion of Shandong Gaotong Holdings in the Hang Seng Composite Index, signifying that the company had met the eligibility criteria for inclusion in the Stock Connect program, reflecting investors’ high recognition of the company’s financial performance and long-term investment value.
Shandong Hi-Speed Group stated that it will seize the opportunities presented by China’s green and low-carbon development and digital transformation, fully leverage the strategic synergy advantages of its controlling shareholder, Shandong Hi-Speed Group, and utilize its own advantages in “industry-finance integration + cross-border collaboration” to deeply cultivate the green and low-carbon field, conduct in-depth research and seek investment opportunities in the fields of new energy and new infrastructure, establish its brand as an expert in industrial investment, and enable shareholders, investors, customers, and employees to share the Group’s high-quality and sustainable development achievements.
