Four straight daily limit-ups, with a cumulative monthly gain approaching 50%. At a time when the photovoltaic industry is struggling collectively, Alma den, a seller of solar glass, has suddenly staged an inexplicable surge.
This solar glass maker, which has lost money for three consecutive years and racked up a 145 million yuan loss in the first three quarters of 2026, is selling itself to a rising card-collecting upstart that rides the trendy toy wave and counts POP MART (09992), China Literature, and Sequoia as backers.
What is even more baffling is that the buyer has made an explicit written promise of "no asset injection within 36 months" and has locked up its shares tightly for five years. The share price has detached from fundamentals and skyrocketed, prompting the company to issue repeated risk warnings, with many retail investors exclaiming they "simply cannot understand this operation."
What is each side really calculating?
A Dignified Exit
According to the company's November 2 announcement, controlling shareholder Almaden Technology plans to transfer a 20% stake to Shanghai Qixing Network at 17.61 yuan per share, for a total price of 680 million yuan. On November 9, Almaden Technology and Qixing Network formally signed the Share Transfer Agreement.
Once the deal closes, the boss of this veteran A-share manufacturer will change from the Lin Jinxi and Lin Jinhan brothers to Zhao Yunpeng, a trendy toy card entrepreneur born in 1995 and founder of Qixing Network. Trading resumed on November 10, and the share price hit consecutive limit-ups after the resumption. After four consecutive limit-ups, this 20% equity transaction has already appreciated by at least 30%.
To understand why the Lin brothers handed over control at this moment, one must first look at how brutal the solar glass industry has been over the past two years. When it comes to Almaden, it is actually a "veteran technology player" in solar circles. Founded in 2006 and listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2011, it once broke foreign monopolies with China's first domestically developed ≤2.0mm ultra-thin physically tempered glass technology, accompanying China's solar industry through a golden decade. Yet it ultimately could not escape the fate of the cycle.
Over the past two years, the entire solar supply chain has been locked in relentless competition, with severe overcapacity, and even the strongest technological advantages could not withstand industry-wide price destruction. More critically, solar glass occupies a classic "sandwich biscuit" position in the supply chain. Upstream raw and fuel materials such as soda ash and natural gas have rigid prices, while selling downstream to solar module giants offers little bargaining power, squeezing profit margins from both ends.
A look at Almaden's books over the past three years reveals a shocking downward line: 2024 revenue of 2.893 billion yuan, with a net loss attributable to shareholders of about 127 million yuan; 2025 revenue shrank nearly 30% to 2.036 billion yuan, with a net loss of 108 million yuan. By the first three quarters of 2026, the bleeding had not stopped but accelerated. The company's revenue was only 1.130 billion yuan, the net loss attributable to shareholders widened to 145 million yuan, and the loss after non-recurring items was 162 million yuan.
Even more troubling for the boss than three consecutive years of losses is that the core business has completely lost its ability to generate cash. Solar glass accounts for 77.86% of Almaden's total revenue, while new businesses such as electronic glass are too small to carry the load. Amid white-hot price wars, mainstream 2.0mm coated solar glass prices have been cut in half from their highs. Almaden's glass gross margin fell from 2.84% in 2024 and 4.41% in 2025 to -2.71% in the first half of 2026—put plainly, every square meter of glass sold means directly burning real money.
In fact, in recent years, the Lin brothers, as actual controllers, did not fail to consider self-rescue. Whether it was the early plan to acquire upstream raw glass assets that ran into obstacles, or the recent shift toward building overseas capacity in the Middle East and elsewhere, the transformation cycle for heavy-asset manufacturing is simply too long, and distant water cannot quench immediate thirst. As of the end of the third quarter of 2026, its debt-to-asset ratio was only 52.24%, quite healthy for a heavy-asset manufacturing industry, and it still had 1.408 billion yuan in cash on its books.
Perhaps it is precisely this state of "the core business is losing money, but the family assets remain solid" that made the Lin brothers determined. Rather than sit and watch the core business losses grind away that 1.4 billion yuan in cash bit by bit, it is better to hand over control with dignity while the shell resource still has value. This retreat brought tangible benefits to the original actual controllers.
First, they locked in gains and shed a heavy guarantee burden. Private bosses in traditional manufacturing often have to provide joint-and-several liability guarantees for the company's bank loans. After transferring the 20% stake, the Lin brothers and persons acting in concert saw their holdings drop to 15.19%, directly cashing out 680 million yuan. Not only did the family's money become more liquid, but the primary responsibility for future borrowing and risk-bearing naturally shifted to the new boss, while they could retreat to second-largest shareholder and continue to share in future valuation gains.
Next is using the new boss's "circle of friends" to help the company break its financing deadlock. With the solar industry in the doldrums, banks have generally tightened their purse strings for such companies, and more than ten companies in the A-share solar sector had their private placements fall through over the past year. Although new boss Zhao Yunpeng is a post-95 entrepreneur, the shareholder roster behind him is extremely impressive—POP MART (with a 10.84% stake), China Literature Group (9.30%), and Sequoia China are all on it. With the implicit endorsement of these top-tier giants and capital, financial institutions will naturally view Almaden differently, making subsequent loan talks and financing much smoother.
680 Million Yuan: Buying a Ticket In?
If the seller is seeking "stopping the bleeding and stability," what is the buyer calculating? Qixing Network was founded in June 2016, with a main business of designing, developing, and operating card trendy culture brands; its core brand is "Hitcard," and in 2026 it created a sub-brand called "cenese."
Many people are curious: how does a card company founded only a few years ago have the confidence to spend 680 million yuan? Unlike traditional manufacturers that made money from children with Ultraman and My Little Pony, Hitcard, founded in 2021, targets Generation Z and adults' "emotional consumption." With high-precision printing and intangible cultural heritage design, it secured top IPs such as The Lost Tomb, Link Click, The King's Avatar, and The Three-Body Problem, carving out a bloody path in the adult premium collectible card track. Its products are mainly trading cards and collectible cards, extending into card peripheral derivatives; its business covers IP licensing cooperation, card design and craftsmanship development, production organization, channel distribution, and brand operations.
Because of high average order values and strong repurchase rates, Hitcard has made a fortune over the past few years, attracting frenzied bets from the capital circle. POP MART controls the world's top trendy toy retail network, and China Literature Group holds China's largest online literature and animation IP library. With both giants taking stakes, Hitcard was pushed directly to the golden intersection of "upstream IP + downstream channels."
From 2023 to 2025, Qixing Network's revenue grew from 28.2862 million yuan to 665 million yuan, and net profit expanded from 870,700 yuan to 72.5521 million yuan. Yet no matter how hot the business is, Hitcard, like all new consumer unicorns, is stuck in a dead end: independently queuing for an IPO is simply too hard. Look at peers to see how congested this path is. Industry leader Kayou filed to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange twice, but its prospectuses successively lapsed; another top player, Suplay, also had a bumpy listing road. Regulators scrutinize the card business's IP dependence and the boundaries of minor consumption extremely closely, making an independent IPO for card companies a single-plank bridge with very low approval odds.
Without a listing, the investors behind it cannot exit, and the founder cannot obtain low-cost funds in the public market to grab top IPs. Since queuing at the front door is too slow, spending money to buy an existing A-share listed company may be a better way to break through. But finding a shell is understandable—why pick a solar glass factory whose business is completely unrelated and which is losing money year after year?
Opening this 680 million yuan transaction plan, the contradictions inside are even more puzzling. Not only are the two companies highly unlikely to achieve business synergy, but the buyer has actively put two tight hoops on itself: an explicit written promise of "no asset injection within 36 months," plus a harsh lock-up period of "no transfer for 5 years, no pledge for 3 years." It can neither immediately inject the profitable cards nor sell shares for a quick cash-out in the short term, and it must also take over a loss-making solar factory. How exactly is the card company calculating this deal?
In fact, in the current A-share market, high-quality companies with genuinely profitable core businesses and low valuations are unlikely to easily sell control; instead, traditional manufacturing enterprises at the bottom of the cycle are willing to transfer at a discount. The reason it specifically chose the loss-making Almaden is that it values its "clean and solid family assets." Although Almaden's core business is losing money, its debt ratio is only 52.24%, it still has 1.408 billion yuan in cash on its books, it has no legacy landmines, and its size is just right for a 680 million yuan acquisition. And since it has bought it but actively promised "no asset injection for 3 years," that is precisely to avoid the "backdoor listing" red line and, by the way, protect the profitable card business.
If assets were forced in under the current strict regulatory environment, it would easily trigger review as harsh as an IPO, and the entire transaction might even be rejected; promising not to inject assets for three years first allows control to transfer smoothly, trading time for certainty in approval. A deeper consideration lies in financial isolation. Almaden currently loses more than 100 million yuan a year and carries a heavy depreciation burden. If the high-margin Hitcard were forced in, all the money the cards earn would have to fill the solar hole and would also drag down the overall valuation. It is better to isolate it outside the listed company for three years and wait until the solar core business gradually digests its burdens.
At the same time, sitting in the position of an A-share actual controller is itself an extremely cost-effective credit investment. Before, when unlisted, no matter how high revenue was, when applying for bank loans, competing for storefronts in core commercial districts, or negotiating IP licensing with overseas brands, it was inevitably looked down upon as a "startup." In fact, looking at the recent A-share market, this is no longer an isolated case. For example, in the embodied intelligence field, Zhiyuan Robotics took control of traditional materials company SWANCOR Advanced Materials, also following the path of first gaining control and temporarily not injecting assets.
Epilogue
Back to the current stock trading, Almaden's surge is essentially emotional speculation by hot money and retail investors around the story of "trendy toy IP + A-share shell resource." However, if the view is extended to three to five years, this 680 million yuan deal does indeed have a lot of flavor. The previous generation of industrial veterans who started with heavy-asset manufacturing and globalization dividends chose a dignified retreat during industry turmoil to preserve their gains. The new generation of post-95 entrepreneurs, deeply versed in young people's emotional consumption and backed by top capital ecosystems, are beginning to skillfully wield M&A leverage and step into the A-share spotlight. In the business world, there is no eternal tradition, nor any unchanging playbook.
Disclaimer: The views in this article are those of the original author and do not represent the views or stance of this publication. Special reminder: Investment decisions should be based on independent thinking. The content of this article is for reference only and does not constitute any actual operational advice. Trading risks are borne by the individual.
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