Private enterprises in Fujian Province give full play to Fujian’s unique regional advantages and their own technological, management and financial advantages, and actively participate in “the Belt and Road Initiative” construction. One of them is Highsun Holding Group.
Highsun Holding Group was found in 1984, after 35 years of development, it has become a modernized enterprise group composed of many entities such as Shen Yuan New Material, Highsun Synthetic Fiber Technologies, Li Heng Nylon, Li Yuan Nylon and so on. In 2017, Shenyuan New Materials Co. Ltd. successfully started up and put into operation once with an annual output of 400,000 tons of caprolactam and polyamide integration project, making caprolactam production capacity the fourth largest in the world.
Reverse Takeover makes a leap forward
“Through this acquisition, Highsun has taken the lead in making cyclohexanone – caprolactam – polymerization – spinning – stretching – warping – weaving – dyeing and finishing and also have the most advanced production technology in the caprolactam field. It fills a number of technological gaps in China, breaks the situation that the relevant technology is controlled by others, realizes the all-round control of the nylon industry chain, and greatly enhances the pricing power of Chinese enterprises in the field of caprolactam.
Highsun acquired 280,000 tons of caprolactam production unit, 320,000 tons of phenol-cyclohexanone production unit, 400,000 tons of caprolactam production unit of Fibrant’s Nanjing plant, as well as core technologies and intellectual property rights, such as caprolactam production technology, phenol-cyclohexanone production process and ammonium sulfate granule production technology. So far, Highsun has three major production bases in Lianjiang, Nanjing and Europe, with an annual capacity of 1.08 million tons of caprolactam, making it the largest caprolactam production group in the world.
In September 2015, DSM sold a 65% stake in caprolactam to the CVC equity fund as it needed to divest its caprolactam business for strategic transformation reasons. In 2017, Highsun Holding Group became a preferred Fibrant buyer for CVC equity funds due to its successful caprolactam production experience and perfect industrial advantages.
“The cooperation between Highsun and Fibrant has a good foundation. Highsun is Fibrant’s largest caprolactam customer, and both parties are based on high quality, reliability and stability! Fibrant is pleased to be part of a global operator with a leading position in caprolactam and nylon, reinforcing Fibrant’s market position,” said Pol Deturck, CEO of Fibrant. As the world’s largest caprolactam producer, Fibrant is a major supplier to BASF, Royal DSM, LANXESS, and DOMO.
Building core competencies through innovation
“Highsun constantly strengthen the innovation research and development ability, bigger and stronger main business through technological transformation, the introduction of talents, and upgrading products. It has also developed high-performance products such as recycled fiber and graphene polyamide to continuously improve the core competitiveness of the company.” Mei Zhen, general manager of the chemical fiber segment of Highsun Holding Group, said.
Since the establishment of the company, Highsun has established the R&D strategy of “cost first, joint R&D”. Enterprise as the main body, market-oriented, product development as the leader, develops towards differentiation, functionalization, and high value-added development of three directions. The company actively introduces the world’s most advanced equipment and technology and strives to digest and absorb, through our own innovative research and development, to form the core technology with independent intellectual property rights with Highsun characteristics. At present, Highsun has polymerization R&D center, independent research and development of spinning position product R&D center, Calmeyer R&D center, analysis, and testing center and spandex R&D line, is a national high-tech enterprise, national differential nylon 6 product development base, Fujian provincial enterprise technology center.
Powerful R&D strength makes Highsun Holding Group’s scientific research achievements fruitful. Currently, they have 443 national intellectual property patents, 11 invention patents, 1 national standard, 6 chemical fiber industry standards. The company’s project on key technology and equipment for manufacturing large-capacity polyamide 6 polymerization and nylon 6 fully matte porous fine denier fiber successfully developed the manufacturing technology of the thinnest single filament nylon filament in China, with a length of 20 kilometers per gram of monofilament. The project is also the first in China to put into production large-capacity polyamide 6 polymerization technology, breaking the monopoly of foreign technology to fill the gaps in domestic technology, and won the first prize of scientific and technological progress of the China Textile Industry Association.
In addition, Highsun Holding Group also cooperated with Xiamen University Graphene Industry Research Institute to apply graphene in nylon 6 fiber materials, if the industrialization success will bring good economic benefits for nylon 6 fiber materials.
“Going global” to embrace global markets
Not long ago, with the performance of stable growth and the ability of sustainable development, Highsun Holding Group was ranked 428th on the list of “Top 500 Chinese Enterprises” for the first time and ranked 207th on the list of “Top 500 Chinese Manufacturing Enterprises” at the same time.
“Shenyuan from July 2017 drive to the first half of this year, all caprolactam for its own use, 95% of ammonium sulfate products exported to overseas markets. The number of exported products accounts for nearly 60% of the company, accounting for 14% of the proportion of the company’s sales, mainly exported to Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Turkey, South Africa, etc.” Song Manjun, deputy general manager of Shenyuan’s marketing and logistics department, said.
“In the future, Highsun will continue to invest in the construction of further expand the industrial cluster effect and drive the prosperous development of related industries in Kemen Port. At the same time, Highsun will continuously improve the quality of products through innovative research and development to promote the transformation and upgrading of the downstream textile industry in Changle.”Chen Jianlong said.
Post time: Feb-21-2022