Yangtze River has emerged from two photovoltaic giants. One is Shi Zhengrong, the founder of Suntech in Wuxi and the "Godfather of Photovoltaic", and the other is Xu Guangfu, the founder of Daqo Group and a low-key tycoon.
Shi Zhengrong is a successful returnee entrepreneur who returned to China after 2000. In his heyday, he won numerous honors and became the richest man in China. Today, Wuxi Suntech has just experienced the second bankruptcy reorganization. Shi Zhengrong has already retired, and the company has no connection with him since he resigned as chairman in 2013.
Xu Guangfu, who has only a junior high school education, has accumulated tens of billions of wealth from township entrepreneurs in the tide of reform and opening up. Today, at the age of 83, Xu Guangfu is still the chairman of Daqo Energy (SH: 688303), the oldest veteran in the photovoltaic industry who is still fighting on the front line.
Xu Guangfu is extremely low-key and rarely appears in public. He has accumulated the unique spirit of diligence, simplicity and struggle of the older generation of entrepreneurs. He is extremely risk-averse, advocates how much money to do, and regards protecting the security of the balance sheet as the top priority of business operation-the asset-liability ratio of Daqo Energy has been maintained within 10% for a long time, and the capital reserve on the account exceeds 10 billion yuan.
Because of this, Daquan Energy has not only survived, but also grown step by step into one of the "four leading silicon materials" in the photovoltaic industry, which is extremely dangerous and shuffled every other day. Some people have commented that in the current round of the longest photovoltaic winter in history, it is hard to say which silicon material company can not hold up first, but Daquan must be the last to fall.
However, the pressure facing today's Daquan is not small. As of the first half of this year, Daqo Energy has been losing money for six consecutive quarters, and no matter how solid it is, it can't afford to go on like this. In the past two years, the company's senior management team has been in turmoil, and more than ten senior executives and core technicians have left one after another. In addition, the lawsuit dispute with the supplier lasted for a long time, and the defendant went to court to claim hundreds of millions of yuan.
In the eyes of the outside world, Daquan's life today is somewhat difficult. "Lian Po is old. Can he still eat?" How will veteran Xu Guangfu, the most low-key and underrated photovoltaic giant in China's photovoltaic industry, lead Daquan through the cycle and rebuild its brilliance? In November
1942, Xu Guangfu was born in a peasant family in Xinba Town, Yangzhong County (1994). After graduating from junior high school, he worked as an agricultural technician and worker. In 1984, Xu Guangfu, 42 years old, served as the "leader" of Xinba Comprehensive Factory and began his business career.
Under the leadership of Xu Guangfu, this township enterprise, which originally produced grinding wheels and bakelite, produced refrigeration compressors, cable bridges and other products, and later changed its name to Zhenjiang Electrical Equipment Factory.
Xu Guangfu has a commercial vision. In 1990, they successfully won the bid for the construction of the Asian Games venues, which made the enterprise famous at one stroke. This year, Zhenjiang Electrical Equipment Factory also went abroad and became the only Chinese enterprise to participate in the Hanover Industrial Exposition in Germany. It was this exhibition that made Xu Guangfu deeply feel the huge gap between domestic and foreign electrical products and inspired his dream of further expanding and strengthening the enterprise.
In the next ten years, through joint ventures and technical cooperation with German SIEMENS, American Moeller, ABB, Schneider and other international giants, Xu Guangfu made Zhenjiang Electrical Equipment Factory a national leader in the fields of medium and low voltage complete sets of electrical equipment, low voltage bus, high voltage enclosed bus, bridge and so on, and developed into an electricity-based company. It is a well-known domestic enterprise group involving environmental protection, science and technology, hotels, construction and other fields. In
2000, the company was restructured, and Zhenjiang Electrical Equipment Factory was renamed Jiangsu Changjiang Electric Group Co., Ltd. (Hereinafter referred to as "Changjiang Electric"). In 2004, it was formally renamed Daqo Group Co., Ltd. Xu Guangfu and his son Xu Xiang hold a total of 53 shares.
2005, Shi Zhengrong, also from Yangzhong, led Wuxi Suntech to become the first Chinese private enterprise to land on the New York Stock Exchange, and once topped the throne of "China's richest man", which shocked Xu's father and son.
Just at this time, Xu Xiang learned that a German company wanted to transfer the production technology of photovoltaic upstream raw material polysilicon, which made him excited, which is a good cross-border entry point for Daquan.
"Around 2007, China's photovoltaic industry has begun to take shape, but it is still completely blank in silicon materials, basically monopolized by overseas manufacturers.". We see this opportunity and hope to establish our position in this field. Years later, Xu Guangfu recalled the original intention of entering the polysilicon industry to the media.
However, Xu Xiang met with a rebuff in Germany-the other side refused to show the technology first, and if he wanted to buy the technology, he had to pay a huge sum of money first. The unreasonable demands of the other party made the acquisition plan strongly opposed by most shareholders of the board of directors of Daqo Group. Xu Xiang insisted on the polysilicon production line. Finally, Xu Guangfu passed the decision. In August
2006, Daqo signed a polysilicon technology transfer contract and technology exclusivity agreement with European Polysilicon Engineering Co., Ltd. in Germany, and acquired the technology and process for the production of solar-grade and electronic-grade polysilicon. In June
2007, Daqo Group invested 4 billion yuan in the first phase of 1500 tons of polysilicon production base in Wanzhou, Chongqing, formally embarked on the road of transformation to the photovoltaic field. It is Xu Xiang, who has just been promoted to vice chairman and president of Daqo Group, who is fully responsible for the preparation of the polysilicon plant.
Creating a "money printing machine", Xu's father and son were on the rich list
. However, what Xu Guangfu did not expect was that the polysilicon road of Daquan had just started and hit the cold winter of the industry, and the huge investment suffered heavy losses.
When the first phase of the project in Wanzhou, Chongqing was put into operation, it was July 2008. Two months later, the subprime mortgage crisis broke out in the United States, and the price of polysilicon soon entered a slump mode. Affected by the European debt crisis in 2011, European countries lowered photovoltaic subsidies. This year, the price of polysilicon fell by 67%. From 2012 to 2013, the United States and the European Union launched a "double-reaction" investigation on China's photovoltaic products, the price of photovoltaic products such as polysilicon plummeted again, and the star photovoltaic enterprises such as Suntech in Wuxi were in crisis.
Daquan's polysilicon projects are constantly moving forward: in 2009, Wanzhou Phase I project expanded to 4000 tons of production capacity; in 2010, Wanzhou Phase II project with an annual output of 3000 tons of polysilicon started construction; In February 2011, Xinjiang Daxin New Energy Co., Ltd. (Later Xinjiang Daxin New Energy Co., Ltd., referred to as "Daquan Energy") was established in Shihezi; On August 30, 2012, Daqo Energy Phase I Project Phase A was completed and put into operation, and the company's production capacity reached 0.
In October 2010, Daqo Group also stripped its silicon business to form Daxin New Energy Co., Ltd. (Hereinafter referred to as "Daxin New Energy", DQ. US), which was successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Financing of $76 million (5.
But by 2012 and 2013, Daxin New Energy also entered the crisis, with losses of 1. Corporate "cash and cash equivalents" also shrank sharply by more than 90% in 2012. In August 2012, Daxin New Energy received a delisting warning from the New York Stock Exchange because its share price was below $1 for 30 consecutive trading days.
But Xu Guangfu believes that in the future, both China and the world will become the main energy source, and this direction is not wrong. He said that an enterprise can not control the changes in the environment, what it can do is to predict risks and put forward corresponding countermeasures. In 2014, Daqo Group provided an interest-free loan of $89.7 million, which solved the urgent need for Daqo New Energy.
Soon, Xu Guangfu's persistence was rewarded. Since the second half of 2013, with the support of national policies, " in China, Daxin New Energy has turned losses into profits in the same year, with a net profit of more than 16 million US dollars. By 2016, with the domestic in 2020, the photovoltaic industry began to grow explosively, and Daquan's polysilicon business ushered in the richest harvest period. At the beginning of 2021, the price of silicon material was still 80000 yuan/ton, which had risen to 270000 yuan/ton by the end of the year, and by 2022, the highest price of silicon material reached 330000 yuan/ton. Daquan's orders are also flying like snowflakes. In 2022 alone, Daquan Energy announced more than 1.28 million tons of silicon materials, with a total amount of 384.7 billion yuan. The supply period is mostly up to the end of 2027, and the longest is up to the end of 2028. The net profit attributable to the parent company of Daqo Energy also soared from 1.043 billion yuan in 2020 to 191 yuan in 2022. This means that in 2022, the daily net profit of Daqo Energy will reach more than 50 million yuan, and the silicon material business has become a veritable "money printer". Standing in the wind of the industry, Daquan Energy was successfully listed on the A-share innovation board in July 2021, and Daquan Group has two listed companies of American stock and A-share. By virtue of its superior strength, Daqo Energy, together with Tongwei Co., Ltd. (SH: 600438), GCL Technology (HK: 03800) and Xinte Energy (HK: 01799), is known as the "Four Silicon Material Leaders". On August 31, 2021, Daqo Energy's share price once reached 91. In the same year, Xu's father and son also ranked 241 on the Hurun Rich List with a net worth of 26 billion yuan, becoming the "richest man in Zhenjiang". In 2023, with the photovoltaic industry entering the cold winter and the end of the silicon material cycle, the rapid growth of Daquan Energy has come to an end. This year, Daqo Energy sold 200,000 tons of polysilicon, an increase of 50.2024 over the same period last year, and Daqo Energy lost more than 2.7 billion yuan; In the first half of 2025, Daqo Energy continued to lose money. 11 . The stock price of Daqo Energy has been falling all the way in the past two years, reaching a minimum of 16 in April this year. At present, the total market value is around 60 billion yuan, down more than 100 billion yuan from the highest point. According to the Hurun Global Rich List in 2025, the wealth of Xu Guangfu and Xu Xiang's father and son also shrank to 10 billion yuan. In addition, since 2023, there has been news of the departure of senior executives from Daqo Energy. By the end of 2024, more than 10 senior executives and core technicians had left their jobs, including General Manager Zhou Qiangmin, Director Zhang Longgen, Vice General Manager Cao Wei and Vice General Manager Hu Ping. In the eyes of the outside world, the days of Daquan today are somewhat difficult because of the double killing of performance and stock prices and the collective departure of senior executives. In fact, this is probably the most difficult time that Xu Guangfu has experienced in his decades of business. Xu Guangfu is now 83 years old, but he has no intention of retirement or retirement. In some important exhibition activities, he can still be seen busy on the front line. Although facing difficulties, thanks to the steady operation of Daquan, it is currently the least risky among the four leading silicon materials. Huaxia Energy Network noted that from the debt point of view, Daquan is the lightest debt pressure among the four leading silicon materials. By the end of the second quarter, the total debt of Daquan Energy was 3.413 billion yuan, and the asset-liability ratio was only 8. The asset-liability ratios of Tongwei Stock, Xiexin Technology and Xinte Energy are 71.93%, 41.98%, respectively. 55. In the impetuous photovoltaic industry, Daquan's extraordinary stability is like an "alien", which is exactly Xu Guangfu's strength. Don't be greedy for more, don't be aggressive, and be careful to sail for ten thousand years. To sum up, Daquan has four anti-risk tricks, which photovoltaic peers want to learn will not: First, seize every opportunity to "save money.". In 2021, Daqo Energy raised nearly 6.5 billion yuan in excess of its listing, of which 2.6 billion yuan was purchased for wealth management products. While making a lot of money in 2020-2023, other peers are spending lavishly to expand production, but Daquan is putting money in the bank. By the end of 2024, the fixed deposit of Daqo Energy will be as high as 81.
Xu Guangfu has an unusual aversion to operational risks because of his more than 40 years of entrepreneurship and nearly 20 years of experience in photovoltaic industry. He believes that the risk control of enterprises is to firmly grasp two points: one is to build core competitiveness. The second is to control the pace of development. 
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