The darling of the capital market, Dike Shares, is actually in the photovoltaic silver paste industry where it is hard to earn processing fees, but every day it always thinks about making big gains with small things and getting rich overnight.
With the acquisition of Sauter (DuPont Photovoltaic Business Unit), Dike acquired the most powerful offensive weapon in terms of intellectual property rights in the slurry field: so the company began to defend rights and claim claims in the entire market – 3 patent lawsuits, resulting in a total of 600 million yuan.
Under the guise of hedging, I bet on silver, but lost 600 million yuan. Now, Dike, who cares about food but not fights, is preparing to enter the storage field again…
It seems that Dike Co., Ltd. has already clearly seen the nature of the low-margin photovoltaic silver paste business, and the future prospects are not too bright.
In the same photovoltaic silver paste industry, Juhe Materials can make money in 2025 when silver prices fluctuate violently, while Diko, the leader in silver paste, has suffered losses.
2025 also set the worst performance since the listing of Dike shares.
The annual report released on March 20 shows: Dike Co., Ltd. will achieve total operating income of 18.046 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 17.56%; total profits will be -230 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 162.97%; net profit attributable to the parent company will be -276 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 176.8%.
Today, I will focus on why Dike shares suffered a huge loss.
Bottom line: Shorting silver is a big bet that fails!
So, can the losses of Dike Shares be avoided? Is this a "natural disaster" or a "man-made disaster"?
01 Miraculous hedging, huge loss of 641 million!
The reason why Dike Co., Ltd. will suffer losses in 2025 is from non-main business.
The annual report clearly states: "The performance changes are mainly due to non-recurring gains and losses, and the impact on the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company is -440 million yuan."
Dike Co., Ltd. said: "In order to cope with the risk of silver powder price fluctuations, the company conducts hedging operations through silver futures contracts; in order to reduce the purchase cost of silver powder and cope with the risk of silver powder price fluctuations, the company conducts silver leasing business. In this period, the price of silver rose rapidly and significantly, and the company's losses on changes in fair value of silver futures and silver leasing accrued based on the silver point on the balance sheet date were relatively large."
From 2025 annual report; non-main business analysis
We all know that silver experienced an epic surge last year, especially in the fourth quarter. The overall fourth quarter of last year showed the rhythm of "shooting high and falling in October, fluctuating and gaining momentum in November, and accelerating to the top in December", with a quarterly increase of approximately 53%.
Unfortunately, Dike shares were shorted, which was completely contrary to the market trend.
So, how much did Dike Holdings lose because of silver?
In the 2025 annual report, the non-recurring profit and loss account of Dike Co., Ltd. clearly states: "In addition to the effective hedging business related to the company's normal operating business, non-financial enterprises have gains and losses from changes in fair value arising from the holding of financial assets and financial liabilities, as well as gains and losses from the disposal of financial assets and financial liabilities." This amount is as high as 641 million yuan!
The financial report further disclosed the non-main business items: investment income was -272 million yuan; fair value change was -411 million yuan…
In the explanation column, the company further explained: "In order to cope with the risk of silver powder price fluctuations, the company conducts hedging operations through silver futures contracts; in order to reduce the purchase cost of silver powder and cope with the risk of silver powder price fluctuations, the company conducts silver leasing business; in order to cope with the risk of exchange rate fluctuations, the company chooses to purchase foreign exchange derivatives; affected by the fluctuation of silver prices and exchange rates, it generates certain investment income and gains and losses from changes in fair value. As well as floating gains and losses arising from changes in the fair value at the end of the period of the special investment funds and asset management plans held by the company."
Qiantanhao does not agree with the rhetoric of Dike Shares. What Dike Shares did actually amplified the risk of price fluctuations and did not manage risks from the perspective of hedging at all.
In other words, when silver skyrocketed, what Dike did was not hedging, it was entirely speculation!
From the 2025 annual report; non-recurring profit and loss items and amounts; unit: yuan
02How is Dike-style gambling authorized?
Silver futures are high-risk financial derivatives, and listed companies have strict restrictions on this.
Dike Shares silver futures are managed with a margin limit. Previously, Dike's approval amount (the upper limit of the margin) did not exceed 100 million yuan.
On October 28 last year, Dike Co., Ltd. issued the "Announcement on Carrying out Financial Derivatives Trading Business": the balance of foreign exchange derivatives at a certain time shall not exceed 2.5 billion yuan, and the guarantee amount of silver futures/options contracts shall not exceed 200 million yuan, and the quota can be recycled within the validity period of the authorization.
In short, the management's authority has been doubled. Here, the company clearly stated on the interactive platform: the silver futures hedging scale matches the business and does not exceed the approved quota.
The authorization is valid for twelve months from the date of approval by the shareholders' meeting. The approval date of the shareholders' meeting is November 13, 2025.
Perhaps it is precisely because of obtaining such a Sword of Shang Fang that Dike Holdings increased the trading scale of silver futures in the fourth quarter of 2025. That was when silver was at its most crazy.
Violent fluctuations and an increase in the amount of superimposed investment resulted in the largest loss in the fourth quarter for Dike Holdings.
There is a feeling that Dike Shares is rushing to "give away money".
It is worth mentioning that in addition to silver futures, Dike Holdings is also engaged in silver leasing.
Silver futures, needless to explain, are both a powerful tool for hedging and a high-risk investment project.
So, what is silver leasing?
Silver leasing refers to a financing or risk management method in which enterprises borrow physical silver from professional institutions (such as banks or precious metal leasing companies), use it within an agreed period, pay leasing fees on schedule, and return an equivalent amount of silver after maturity.
Generally speaking, through silver leasing, companies can obtain the silver raw materials needed for production without immediately occupying a large amount of cash, thus easing the pressure on purchasing funds caused by high silver prices. At the same time, the leased silver can be used for production. After the product sales are paid back, the same amount of silver will be returned through market procurement or futures hedging to achieve cost smoothing and capital efficiency optimization.
However, there are price fluctuations during the lease period, and silver leasing naturally has risks.
Theoretically, if a company wants to hedge, it should go long on one hand and short on the other to achieve risk hedging and smooth profits.
However, Dike shares not only went in the opposite direction on silver, but also had no hedging. It is a two-way short sale (silver futures, silver leasing). If the silver price falls, the result can only be a doubling of losses.
If both sides of the enterprise are long (or both short), it loses the meaning of hedging and is closer to gambling.
Dike Shares should be very clear about its situation, or it just wants to take a serious gamble and make a profit, and does not want to eat in a painful business model.
The business of photovoltaic silver paste is indeed simple: just buy silver powder and charge a certain processing fee based on the silver point price.
But it is also a very stable business model. This is highly similar to operating a gold jewelry company: affected by the price of key raw materials, the main purpose is to earn processing fees. When gold jewelry companies do hedging, the mainstream range is 50%-70%, and a few leaders can reach 70%-80%. The hedging ratio of A-share company Caibai shares is about 80%–90% (nearly fully hedged).
03 It is difficult to get rich if you are partial to wealth, and it is difficult to fertilize grass at night.
There is something strange about Dike Shares, which is worth pondering.
Last year, Dike Holdings acquired a well-known peer, Sauter. Dike shares now hold 60% of Soter's shares, and the shareholding change was completed in September last year. Sauter is the former photovoltaic silver paste division under DuPont. Its technical prowess and patents are unquestionable. No need to say much.
So, will Soter lose money investing in silver in 2025?
Obviously, the answer is no.
The announcement shows: Zhejiang Sote achieved a net profit attributable to the parent company of 98.0546 million yuan in 2025 (note: it was also profitable in the fourth quarter).
Dike and Sauter are both peers and parent and subsidiary companies, and they also have related transactions.
(1) The 2025 annual report shows that Sauter is Dico’s second largest customer, with a purchase volume of 2.348 billion yuan. The sales content of Dike is silver powder.
(2) Dike Co., Ltd. centrally purchases silver powder from suppliers and then sells it to Sauter. The reason given by Dike Shares is that centralized procurement can obtain preferential conditions.
So whose business was silver leasing created for? Why didn't Sauter participate in silver futures investment?
In any case, Sauter's performance is good, which is good for everyone.
When Dike Shares acquired Sote, it promised that the audited net profits realized by Zhejiang Sote in 2025, 2026 and 2027 will be no less than RMB 68.1 million, RMB 90.8 million and RMB 128.1 million respectively (hereinafter referred to as the "Committed Net Profit"), and the cumulative committed net profit will be no less than RMB 287 million. Sauter's net profit attributable to the parent company in 2025 was 98.0546 million yuan, far exceeding the promised 68.1 million yuan, which can be regarded as overfulfilling the "task".
It is understandable why Dike shares "favors" Sauter. Because Sauter is particularly good at fighting, it is Diko's secret weapon. Due to the acquisition of the original DuPont Solamet business, Zhejiang Sote has acquired a global patent family (approximately 227 items) with lead-tellurium oxide as the core. This is the basic patent for the bottom layer of photovoltaic silver paste, covering mainstream technology routes such as PERC, TOPCon, and HJT.
Because of these patents, Dike Co., Ltd. and Soter sued Guojuhe Materials (which has been settled), and are suing Riyu Photovoltaics, Jingyin (a subsidiary of Suzhou Goodtech), and Guangda Electronics.
The company announced: (1) The company sued Jiangsu Riyu Photovoltaic New Materials Co., Ltd. and Suzhou Jingyin New Materials Technology Co., Ltd. respectively due to disputes over infringement of invention patent rights. The above lawsuits have been accepted by the Jiangsu Provincial Higher People's Court. The case numbers are (2026) Su Zhiminchu No. 1 and (2026) Su Zhiminchu No. 2. The amount involved in both cases is 200,000,000 yuan, and the provisional total is RMB 400,000,000. Yuan.
(3) According to the "Announcement of Wuxi Dike Electronic Materials Co., Ltd. on Major Subsidiary Litigation Matters" issued by the company, Zhejiang Sote Materials Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhejiang Sote) is the plaintiff, suing Zhejiang Guangda Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. for infringement of invention patent rights, with an amount of 200 million yuan involved (Case No.: (2025)) Full text of the 2025 annual report of Zhejiang Wuxi Dike Electronic Materials Co., Ltd. 215 Zhi Minchu 3 No.), Zhejiang Guangda Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. subsequently sued Zhejiang Sote for maliciously filing an intellectual property lawsuit. As of the reporting date, both cases were under trial.
To sum up, Dike Co., Ltd. and Sote are currently involved in three patent infringement lawsuits, each claiming a claim amount of 200 million yuan.
600 million is not a small amount. If the lawsuit is won and implemented, then Dike will make a huge profit, which can just make up for the company's short silver shortfall!
end
Although the performance of Dike Co., Ltd. was thunderous, judging from the company's stock price trend the day after the company released its annual report, investor sentiment was relatively stable. This may be due to investors’ psychological expectations that silver prices have been falling recently.
Shanghai Silver closed at 17,074 yuan/kg on the last trading day in 2025, and then fell back after a sharp rise. If the price of silver continues to fall, part of the floating losses of Dike shares may be reversed.
We said above that photovoltaic slurry is a very simple business – earning processing fees.
Although photovoltaic technology is developing rapidly and silver prices fluctuate violently, companies have put forward higher requirements for silver paste. They hope to reduce silver consumption, use base metals such as copper to replace silver, and get rid of their dependence on silver. Therefore, various slurry companies are conducting relevant research and development. But now there is no technical gap between various slurry companies, and some photovoltaic main material companies are preparing to make copper slurry themselves.
In 2025, the gross profit margin of photovoltaic conductive silver paste will be only 8.57%, a year-on-year decrease.
In short, photovoltaic slurry is not a good business, it is very painful. In addition to betting heavily on silver futures, Dike Co., Ltd. is also seeking to enter the high-margin track-the memory chip sector.
In September 2024, Dike Co., Ltd. acquired 51% of the equity of Yinmeng Holdings, and announced the acquisition of 62.5% of the equity of Jiangsu Jingkai in October 2025 based on the business development. It has realized a closed loop of the DRAM storage industry chain and built integrated advantages throughout "applied development and design – wafer testing – packaging and testing". A series of LPDDR and DDR products have grown rapidly in the fields of consumer electronics and smart terminals, and it has focused on the layout of SoC-DRAM packaged products and CXL As well as LPWDRAM (low power high bit width memory chip, or Mobile-HBM) and other AI computing power and end-side AI related products.
Looking at Dike shares in the future, we may not be able to completely refer to photovoltaics. We also hope that Dike can make achievements in the field of integrated circuits and stop gambling on high-risk futures.
However, the situation is easy to change, but the nature is hard to change, I hope so!
