Free corona tests Pharmacies want to reduce supply

Status: 06/20/2021 07:22 a.m.

In view of falling demand and less money from the federal government, many pharmacies want to reduce their range of corona rapid tests. The implementation is no longer economical. Due to the falling demand for corona tests, Germany’s pharmacies want to limit their range. Since the number of fully vaccinated is increasing and infection protection rules have been relaxed, the need for tests is decreasing, said a spokesman for the Abda pharmacists’ association. He also pointed out that the federal government pays less than before. “This means that it is no longer economical to carry out the tests for a number of pharmacies.” The test offer will therefore probably get smaller step by step. Alongside private companies and state institutions, pharmacies are among the most important test center operators. According to Abda estimates, around 20 to 25 percent of pharmacies offer so-called citizen tests – that is, rapid tests that are free for consumers and paid for by the federal government.

Less money for tests

Originally, the pharmacies, like all other providers, received up to 18 euros per antigen test carried out, now the federal government only pays up to 12.50 euros. In the corona pandemic, spring tests were key to ensuring that people with a negative result could visit restaurants or shops.

However, the number of infections is now so low that loosening takes effect and a visit to a restaurant or shopping is permitted even without a test result. In addition, fully vaccinated people are exempt from test requirements.

Fewer and fewer rapid tests

Figures from the NRW Ministry of Health show how much demand is falling. Last Thursday there were 306,000 rapid antigen tests via the test centers in the state. Of those, 216 were positive – a percentage of 0.07 percent. A week earlier there were 498,000 tests in one day (positive: 0.08 percent); a month ago it was 594,000 (positive: 0.23 percent). The number of test sites in North Rhine-Westphalia was recently stable at 9236 – it will probably decrease in the future.

The Association of the Diagnostics Industry, which represents manufacturers of tests, assumes that the demand for antigen tests in the test centers will drop significantly in the summer. The manufacturers will “of course adjust to a permanently falling demand,” said an association spokeswoman. But they are working on tests that could detect both influenza and coronavirus disease. Such tests could help in the fall, should there be a flu wave and the number of corona infections rise again.

Decoding the Hong Kong stocks, the original trump card column of the Hong Kong Caihua News Agency, and financial experts gathered. After reading, remember to subscribe, comment, and like.

Shot again! This time, Ganfeng Lithium aimed at the lithium mines in the Republic of Mali. By throwing 130 million US dollars, it acquired 50% of the shares of Dutch SPV and obtained the underwriting rights of its spodumene mine project in the Republic of Mali.

The Dutch company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Australian listed company Firefinch. Firefinch’s main business is the development of gold and lithium mines in Mali. Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Goulamina Holdings, it holds 100% of Timbuktu Resources and LMSA 100. % Equity.

After the completion of this investment, Ganfeng Lithium will obtain the underwriting right of 50% of the first phase of the Goulamina project with an annual production capacity of about 455,000 tons of spodumene concentrate.

If the company directly provides financial assistance or assists LMSA to obtain debt funds provided by third-party banks or other financial institutions, it can obtain the underwriting right of the remaining 50% of the project’s first phase.

01 Everything is for lithium

The U.S. Geological Survey’s 2018 report shows that the global lithium resources exceed 53 million tons, of which Argentina has 9.8 million tons, Bolivia has 9 million tons, Chile has 8.4 million tons, China has 7 million tons, the United States has 6.8 million tons, and Australia Occupies 5 million tons.

At present, China’s proven lithium resources (metal equivalent) reserves are 5.4 million tons, of which salt lake resources account for about 70% of the country’s total reserves, and ore resources account for about 30%. Despite recent progress in the technology of extracting lithium from salt lakes, it still faces problems such as high cost, high purification difficulty, and low output.

Domestic salt lakes are prohibitive, and most lithium material manufacturers have turned their attention overseas, choosing to extract lithium from clay and extract lithium from ore.

This is not the first time that Ganfeng Lithium has “goed to sea for lithium”. Just in May 2021, Ganfeng Lithium completed the capital increase of Bacanora, an overseas company, with a transaction amount of not more than 190 million pounds. After the transaction is completed, Ganfeng’s 17.41% stake in Bacanora increased to 28.88%.

Bacanora was established in 2018 and is listed on the AIM section of the London Stock Exchange in the United Kingdom. Its main asset is the lithium clay Sonora project in Mexico. The Sonora project is a lithium extraction project from lithium clay located in Mexico. It is currently one of the largest lithium resource projects in the world. The total lithium resource of the project is approximately 8.8 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent. It is estimated that the annualized lithium hydroxide production capacity after the first phase of the project is put into operation will be 20,000 tons.

Ganfeng Lithium’s road of seeking lithium goes far beyond that. The time goes back to November 20, 2012. Its subsidiary Ganfeng International and Canadian International Lithium Co., Ltd. signed the “Ireland Blackstair Lithium Mine Project Equity Agreement” to obtain Lithium International has no less than 51% equity in the Blackstair lithium mine project in Ireland.

The Irish Blackstair lithium mine project is located in the Irish Leinster lithium pegmatite ore belt 80 kilometers south of Dublin. This pegmatite belt extends more than 50 kilometers and currently has eight exploration licenses within 292 square kilometers. The project did small-scale exploration in the 1970s and found 19 lithium deposits, which are still under exploration.

In 2016, Ganfeng International began its journey to acquire RIM in Australia. In March 2019, Ganfeng International completed the acquisition and eventually held 50% of RIM. Li Liangbin served as a director of RIM.

The RIM owns 100% of the Mt Marion spodumene project. The data shows that the MtMarion lithium mine project contains 6.75 million tons of lithium oxide. The project was officially put into production in February 2017. Ganfeng International and MtMarion signed a long-term underwriting agreement. From 2016 to 2019, Ganfeng Lithium will refer to the market. Price, all spodumene concentrates produced by underwriting lithium ore projects with a lithium oxide content of more than 6%.

In March 2019, Ganfeng International invested 50 million Australian dollars to subscribe for 77.634 million Pilbara private placement shares. After the completion of the transaction, Ganfeng International held 8.37% of Pilbara’s equity, became Pilbara’s single largest shareholder, and obtained the right to underwrite the spodumene concentrate.

According to the agreement, Pilbara will provide Ganfeng with a maximum of 150,000 tons of the second-phase expanded lithium concentrate after the construction of the second-phase project is put into operation. If Ganfeng provides an advance payment of no less than US$20 million for the expansion of the Pilbara Phase III project, Pilbara will provide Ganfeng with a maximum of 50,000 tons of lithium equivalent after the construction of the Phase III project. Produce lithium concentrate.

In January 2017, Ganfeng International subscribed for 75 million new shares of Lithium Americas Corp. (“America Lithium”) with its own funds at a price of 0.85 Canadian dollars per share. The transaction amount was 49 million US dollars. This transaction After completion, Ganfeng International holds a 19.9% ​​stake in American Lithium and provides development loans not exceeding US$125 million in total.

The core assets of Lithium America are the Cauchari Salt Lake Project in Jujuy Province, Argentina and the Clay Lithium Extraction Project in Nevada, USA.

Looking back at history, it seems that Ganfeng’s global exaggeration has never stopped. Lithium resources are tight and I dare not slow down. Every acquisition costs a huge amount of money. Where does the money come from?

02 Part of the shareholder’s shares released from the pledge

In addition to a small portion of its own funds, the expansion of Ganfeng Lithium still relies on external funds. The founders have long obtained external funds through equity pledges, and the financial leverage is smooth.

On June 14, 2021, Ganfeng Lithium issued an announcement on the release of the pledge of shareholders’ shares. There were two shares that were released from the pledge, one of 2.25 million shares, and the pledge date was from 2018-11-9 to 2021-6- 10; The other is 1.74 million shares, and the pledge date is from 2019-1-14 to 2021-6-10. Both pledges are from the company’s founder Li Liangbin, and the pledge holder is Jiangxi State-owned Venture Capital Management Co., Ltd.

After the pledge was lifted, Li Liangbin and those acting in concert still had pledged shares outside. The accumulated pledged shares amounted to 61.56 million shares, accounting for 21.24% of his shares and 4.43% of the company’s total equity.

The release of the pledge of shares shows that Ganfeng Lithium is currently full of cash flow, and the debt problems in the past are gradually declining. It also indirectly shows that the original creditors recognized the value of the shares of Ganfeng Lithium, otherwise they would not risk taking over.

Stock pledge is a financing method often used by listed companies, especially in the case of poor capital links and poor business operations, some major shareholders will prefer this financing method. If the pledge is not enough, the pledged stocks will be Selling to a bank or trust means that shareholders indirectly reduce their holdings to realize cash.

However, for some listed companies that do not perform well, the pledge of stocks for financing is extremely dangerous, and it may cause fire. Generally, both parties of the stock pledge will agree that if the price of the stock drops and touches the pledge liquidation line, the pledge institution will force the sale of the pledge. The stock price further caused the stock price to collapse.

For some listed companies with stable operations, stock pledge to finance is a more efficient and low financing cost. At least one’s own stock can be pledged, which is also a symbol of strength.

In recent years, most of the money from Ganfeng Lithium’s stock pledge financing is still used in two aspects, one is the layout of production capacity, and the other is the layout of upstream lithium resources.

Because of the continuous staking and enclosure, Ganfeng Lithium can stand out from the competitors, and the reserves of lithium resources in domestic listed companies have won the crown, as shown in the following figure:

It is worth mentioning that although Ganfeng Lithium has an upstream and downstream relationship with the Ningde era, the reserves of lithium resources in the Ningde era are not as good as those of Ganfeng Lithium. The Ningde era has also been paving the way for “lithium” in recent years. Lithium is worried and avoids getting stuck by lithium resources in the future. Ningde also introduced sodium batteries.

Not only that, the two have not established a direct cooperative relationship in business, but Ganfeng Lithium has established a long-term cooperative relationship with another lithium battery giant LG Chem.

Whether Ganfeng Lithium did not enter the Ningde era’s supply chain camp, or whether the two have indirectly cooperated through cathode material manufacturers, which is unclear.

Author Hui Ze Li

Author: Hui Ze Li

Edit: lala

Software business revenue maintained rapid growth. From January to April, my country’s software industry completed software business revenue of 2571.9 billion yuan, an increase of 25.0% year-on-year, and the growth rate dropped by 1.5 percentage points from January to March. The compound growth rate in the past two years was 11.7%. Figure 1 Software business revenue growth from 2020 to 2021 from January to April The growth of total profits slowed down. From January to April, the industry realized a total profit of 288.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.5%, a decrease of 5.4 percentage points from January to March, and a compound growth rate of 8.5% in the past two years. Figure 2 The growth of the total profit of the software industry from 2020 to 2021 from January to April Software exports grew steadily. From January to April, the software industry achieved exports of US$14.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14.5%, basically returning to the level of the same period in 2019. Among them, the export of outsourcing services was US$4.06 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.3%; the export of embedded system software was US$5.86 billion, a year-on-year increase of 8.2%. Figure 3 The export growth of the software industry from 2020 to 2021 from January to April The number of employees has increased steadily, and the growth rate of total wages has increased slightly. From January to April, the average number of employees in the software industry in my country was 7.11 million, an increase of 5.8% year-on-year, and the scale increased by 140,000 from January to March; total wages of employees increased by 11.0% year-on-year, an increase of 0.4 percentage points from January to March. The compound growth rate in the past two years is 5.6%. Figure 4 The growth of total wages of software industry employees from 2020 to 2021 from January to April 2. Operation status by field Software product revenue grew steadily and rapidly. From January to April, software products achieved revenue of 682.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.5%, an increase of 0.1 percentage points from January to March, accounting for 26.5% of the industry’s revenue. With the continuous release of favorable policies in the field of intelligent manufacturing and the demand for industrial informatization and intelligent upgrading and transformation, the revenue of industrial software products reached 62.8 billion yuan, an increase of 22.3% year-on-year and an increase of 1.4 percentage points from January to March. Revenue from information technology services maintained rapid growth. From January to April, information technology services achieved revenue of 1,622.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.8%, a drop of 2.4 percentage points from January to March, and accounting for 63.1% of the industry’s revenue. Among them, with the continuous expansion of online education, telemedicine and other applications, cloud computing and big data applications accelerated, the two achieved a total revenue of 227 billion yuan, an increase of 26.8% year-on-year, accounting for 14.0% of information technology service revenue; e-commerce platform technical services The revenue was 20.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.4%; the IC design revenue was 62 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.6%. Revenue from information security products and services has accelerated growth. With the acceleration of domestic digital transformation, the importance of information security has increased significantly. From January to April, information security products and services achieved a total revenue of 38.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28.4%, an increase of 3.6 percentage points from January to March. The growth rate of embedded system software revenue was steady but slow. From January to April, embedded system software realized revenue of 228.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.4%, and a decrease of 3.3 percentage points from January to March. Figure 5 The proportion of the software industry’s classified revenue from January to April 2020/2021 3. Operation by region The income of the software industry in the northeastern region has increased rapidly, and the growth in the central region has been outstanding. From January to April, the eastern region completed 2,125.8 billion yuan in software business revenue, a year-on-year increase of 26.1%, down 1.3 percentage points from January to March, and 1.1 percentage points higher than the national average. Under the influence of the low base of the previous year, the central region completed software business revenue of 974 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.4%, an increase of 1.7 percentage points from January to March, and 1.4 percentage points higher than the national average. The western region completed software business revenue of 291.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.5%, a drop of 4 percentage points from January to March. The Northeast region completed software business revenue of 56.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.7%, an increase of 1.4 percentage points from January to March. The software business revenue of the four regions accounted for 82.7%, 3.8%, 11.3%, and 2.2% of the total national revenue, respectively. Figure 6 Software industry revenue growth by region from January to April 2021 Major software provinces continued to grow rapidly, and some central and western provinces and cities grew rapidly. From January to April, among the top 5 provinces in software business revenue, Beijing, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai had software revenue of 541.8 billion yuan, 493.4 billion yuan, 355.4 billion yuan, 228.5 billion yuan, and 186.7 billion yuan, respectively. Increased by 43.8%, 19.4%, 22.9%, 16.1% and 30.5%, the total software business revenue of the five provinces and cities was 1805.8 billion yuan, accounting for 70.2% of the country’s proportion, which was 2.3 percentage points higher than the same period last year. Due to the small total volume and low base, the software business revenue in the five provinces of Guizhou, Hainan, Shanxi, Yunnan and Guangxi increased by more than 50% year-on-year. Figure 7 Growth of the top ten provinces and cities in software business revenue from January to April 2021 The revenue of the software business in central cities has grown steadily, and the growth of total profits has slowed down. From January to April, 15 sub-provincial central cities across the country realized software business revenue of 1383.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.2%, and a decrease of 2.6 percentage points from January to March, accounting for 53.8% of the national software business revenue, accounting for the same period last year A decline of 1.7 percentage points. Among them, the year-on-year growth rate of Harbin and Ningbo’s software business revenue was 11.1 and 0.9 percentage points higher than the industry-wide revenue growth rate, respectively. The total profit of the software industry in central cities was 165.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.1%, and a decrease of 9.3 percentage points from January to March. Among them, Ningbo, Harbin, Xi’an, Shenyang, and Guangzhou recorded a total profit growth rate exceeding the industry average. Figure 8 The growth of software business revenue in sub-provincial central cities from 2020 to 2021 from January to April

At Germany’s largest electricity producer, shareholders are pressing for a faster coal exit. “With CO2 emissions of almost 69 million tons in 2020, RWE is still an emissions heavyweight in Europe,” criticized the sustainability specialist from the Sparkasse fund subsidiary Deka Investment at the virtual general meeting. It is therefore necessary to accelerate the phase-out of lignite. She also sees the issue of wind energy not being adequately represented on the Supervisory Board. “Wind power is a big topic for future power generation and for RWE. The importance of the division is currently not adequately reflected in the supervisory board. The necessary competence is still missing here,” she said. Union Investment expert Henrik Pontzen argues similarly. The sustainable transformation of the energy industry is a marathon. The first kilometers have been made with the focus on renewable energies. He appealed to future RWE boss Markus Krebber to speed up the renovation.

2.6 billion euros in compensation

The outgoing RWE CEO Rolf Martin Schmitz assured the shareholders that the company management was working hard to make the company more and more sustainable. Schmitz described reports that RWE could sell its fossil fuels or outsource them from the group as “pure speculation”. The public law contract on the coal phase-out set “narrow limits of action for such measures”. RWE will receive compensation of 2.6 billion euros for the premature shutdown of all lignite power plants by 2038. Schmitz was confident that the EU Commission would wave this aid through in the ongoing investigation.

RWE wants to be climate neutral by 2040

The company, which used to be strongly focused on nuclear power and coal, is transforming itself into one of the largest producers of green electricity in Europe. By swapping business areas with long-standing rival E.ON, Schmitz had significantly expanded green electricity generation at RWE and given it a boost. At the end of April, the previous CFO Krebber took over the helm at RWE. He wants to expand the green electricity business by 2022 alone with investments of five billion euros. After the coal phase-out agreed with the federal government, the generation of electricity from this climate-damaging fuel is to end in 2038 at the latest. RWE wants to generate climate-neutral electricity by 2040.

“Climate killer with worldwide consequences”

For environmentalists, this is not happening fast enough. Climate activists who demonstrated in front of the headquarters in Essen complained that RWE still generated 79 percent of its electricity from coal, gas and uranium last year. Thus the group remains “a climate killer with worldwide consequences”. The new CEO Krebber must liquidate the lignite division by 2030 at the latest, demanded the environmental organization Greenpeace, if the company wants to meet the Paris climate protection target.