Four Years After Founder's Death, Chifeng Gold Changes Hands! Post-80s Widow to Completely Exit After Over 100 Billion Yuan Transaction

The total transaction value is approximately 18.258 billion yuan, marking one of the largest mergers and acquisitions in the Chinese gold mining industry in recent years. Four years after the death of Zhao Meiguang, a major figure in Inner Mongolia’s mining sector and founder of Chifeng Gold (600988.SH/06693.HK), his widow Li Jinyang, born in the 1980s, has ended the “majority stake but no management” situation and has chosen to fully exit.

Chifeng Gold recently announced a major update: the company’s actual controller will undergo a significant change. Once the deal is completed, this private Inner Mongolian mining company will become part of the large “Zijin Group” and the actual controller will change to the Finance Bureau of Shanghang County, Fujian Province.

The announcement states that the controlling shareholder and actual controller, Ms. Li Jinyang, along with her concerted parties, has signed a share transfer agreement with Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. (referred to as “Zijin Mining,” 601899.SH/2899.HK), through its wholly owned subsidiary Zijin Gold (Group) Co., Ltd. (“Zijin Gold”). The company also plans to issue targeted H-shares to Zijin Gold.

According to the disclosed transaction plan, the control change will be executed through a combination of “agreement transfer + targeted issuance.” Li Jinyang and her concerted party, Zhejiang Hanfeng Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership), intend to transfer all 242 million unrestricted circulating shares (accounting for 12.73% of the current total share capital) at a price of 41.36 yuan per share to Zijin Gold, totaling approximately 10.006 billion yuan.

After the transfer, Li Jinyang and Zhejiang Hanfeng will no longer hold any shares in the company, fully exiting the shareholder ranks.

Meanwhile, Chifeng Gold and Zijin Gold have signed a “Strategic Investment Agreement,” planning to issue 311 million H-shares at a subscription price of 30.19 HKD per share, approximately 83% of the six-month average price before trading suspension. The total subscription amount is about 9.386 billion HKD, roughly 8.252 billion RMB.

The total transaction value is approximately 18.258 billion RMB. After completion, Zijin Mining’s wholly owned subsidiary will hold a total of 572 million shares of Chifeng Gold, about 25.85% of the post-issuance total shares, making it the largest single shareholder group. Notably, prior to this transaction, Zijin Mining already held 19 million shares (0.99%) through other wholly owned subsidiaries.

Upon completion, Zijin Mining will officially gain control of Chifeng Gold and consolidate its financials. According to the agreement, Zijin Gold commits not to transfer the acquired shares within 18 months of the transfer date and to promote the election of its nominated directors within five working days after the investment is completed, ensuring at least two-thirds representation on the board.

This means that after the transaction, Chifeng Gold will shift from a privately controlled enterprise by individuals to a listed company controlled by local state-owned assets, with the actual controller changing to the Shanghang County Finance Bureau. As a significant shareholder of Zijin Mining, holding 22.88%, the bureau is the company’s ultimate controlling entity.

Three days before the announcement, Chifeng Gold released its 2025 annual report, delivering its best-ever results. The report shows that in 2025, the company achieved operating revenue of 12.639 billion yuan, a 40.03% increase year-over-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 3.082 billion yuan, up 74.70% from 1.764 billion yuan the previous year; mineral gold production reached 14.51 tons, with a compound annual growth rate of 26% over the past five years, surpassing industry averages.

Zijin Mining stated in its latest announcement that the company adheres to a resource-first strategy and has actively pursued mergers and acquisitions of high-quality listed peers worldwide in recent years. This M&A model offers advantages such as lower acquisition costs to expand project resources, effective risk diversification, and enhanced asset securitization. Relying on its proprietary “Five Rings of Ore Flow” technology and management system, Zijin can deeply empower invested enterprises, unlock resource potential, reshape market valuation, and achieve good investment returns.

Zijin believes that all gold mine projects under Chifeng Gold are operational and can contribute production and profits immediately upon acquisition, with potential for further improvements in operational and capacity levels, promising significant economic benefits. The core mines of Chifeng Gold are located in major global gold mineralization belts, with favorable mineralization conditions and excellent resource endowments. However, due to insufficient early geological exploration investments, overall resource exploration progress has lagged, and the full resource value has yet to be realized. Future systematic exploration investments, combined with Zijin’s leading geological survey and deep prospecting technologies, are expected to significantly increase resource reserves.

Regarding this deal, Zijin Mining’s Vice Chairman and President Lin Hongfu publicly responded at the March 23 earnings presentation. He stated that in the short term, gold prices will fluctuate sharply, but in the medium to long term, issues like global governance and excessive issuance of fiat currency remain unresolved. The logic for maintaining high or rising gold prices remains unchanged, and this acquisition aligns with the company’s resource-prioritization strategy. Additionally, Chifeng Gold has promising exploration prospects and capacity enhancement potential in Ghana, Laos, and domestic mines.

It is noteworthy that in recent years, the domestic gold market has shown a trend of accelerating concentration among leading companies. In 2023, Shandong Gold (600547.SH/1787.HK) spent 12.76 billion yuan to acquire control of Yintai Gold (000975.SZ, now Shanjin International), gaining high-grade, low-cost mining assets.

As a leading private gold mining listed company in China, Chifeng Gold mainly engages in gold mining, processing, and sales, with operations across China, Southeast Asia, and West Africa. Its founder, Zhao Meiguang, a major figure in Inner Mongolia’s mining industry, passed away in December 2021 at age 59.

According to Zhao Meiguang’s will, all personal inheritance was to be inherited solely by his spouse, Li Jinyang, including control of Chifeng Gold. After inheriting the estate, Li Jinyang not only holds shares in Chifeng Gold but also invests in companies like Haiguang Information and Ningcheng Rural Commercial Bank through her platform. In 2025, at age 41, Li Jinyang ranked 647th on the Hurun Rich List with a wealth of 11 billion yuan.

Li Jinyang became the actual controller of Chifeng Gold overnight but has not intervened in the company’s operations. In terms of corporate governance, Chifeng Gold maintains a “family control + professional management” model, with operations fully managed by a team led by Wang Jianhua. The control change is widely interpreted as Li Jinyang’s “cash-out and exit.”

Wang Jianhua, born in 1956, is a veteran in the mining industry. He has served as Chairman of Shandong Gold Group and as Director and President of Zijin Mining Group. He joined Chifeng Gold in 2018 and has been Chairman since December 2019. In November 2020, Wang acquired 98.17 million shares of Chifeng Gold from founder Zhao Meiguang for 1.669 billion yuan, becoming a major shareholder.

(Article source: The Paper)