Who would have thought that the Yurun Group, which holds the titles of "Pork King" and "Hundred Billion Empire", has also fallen to the point of bankruptcy and reorganization.
Once it was more cattle than Shuanghui, it was not only the leading overlord of the domestic meat and food processing industry, but also the world's first slaughtering enterprise, ranking fifth in the top 500 private enterprises in China!
Its founder, Zhu Yicai, has a legendary experience, starting from 200 yuan, creating a giant group spanning seven major industries such as real estate, finance, tourism, logistics, food and construction, with a revenue of 150 billion yuan.
However, in recent years, Zhu Yicai and his Yurun Group have ceased to be in the limelight, the former being placed under residential surveillance for 4 years, while the latter has debts of more than 100 billion yuan, and its 122 companies are facing restructuring to save themselves.
Yurun Group, what has it experienced? Where will it go from here, and will it be able to make a comeback?
01: The birth of Yurun
Zhu Yicai is a native of Anhui, born in 1964, his family is poor, and he sometimes can't even fill his stomach when he was young.
Perhaps it was this experience that gave him an extremely strong desire for wealth.
He also believed that knowledge changed his destiny, and with his efforts, he was admitted to Hefei University of Technology, which had not yet expanded, and the gold content of academic qualifications was far from being comparable to today, so as soon as he graduated, he was assigned to a shipping company.
To be honest, this shipping job is not only stable, but also has a monthly salary of 60 yuan, if it is replaced by ordinary people, it should be very satisfied, but Zhu Yicai is different.
He knew very well that what he wanted was not food, clothing and stability, but great wealth and nobility!
After only one year of work, he resigned and went to the sea, carrying 200 yuan to do business.
After an inspection, he learned a piece of information: the aquatic markets in Guangdong and Anhui were unbalanced, so he was keenly aware that this was a business opportunity, so he relied on poor information to start a "scalping" business.
Wanwan did not expect that the first business to open the door, he earned 100,000 yuan, in exchange for the previous work, have to eat or drink dry for more than a hundred years to get it, and because of this, Zhu Yicai is more convinced that his choice is not wrong.
In the next four years, his assets also snowballed to 4.8 million!
As more and more money was in his pocket, Zhu Yicai's ambitions also began to soar.
In 1991, he officially entered the low-temperature meat food industry, founded the Yurun processing plant, and then relied on a series of acquisitions to expand rapidly; in 1996, Yurun has grown into a group with assets of more than 100 million, with more than 1,000 dealers; in 1997, more than 50 state-owned enterprises on the verge of bankruptcy have been acquired and merged by Yurun Group.
One of the most talked about acquisitions is the Nanjing Canning Factory. You know, at that time, Yurun was only 5 million in volume, while the Nanjing Canning Factory was worth 70 million, and the so-called "snake swallowing giant elephant" was nothing more than that.
Zhu Yicai, because of this acquisition, became the first person in the domestic private enterprise to acquire a state-owned enterprise.
02: Pork King, crisis looms
In 2001, Yurun's annual marketing exceeded 3.4 billion, becoming a well-deserved industry hegemon, and Zhu Yicai's wealth also rose, and soon sat on the throne of the richest man in Jiangsu.
At this time, Zhu Yicai's "old mistake" was committed again.
Just like the previous water intentions, he could not meet his 4.8 million worth, and now the pure low-temperature meat food industry cannot satisfy the appetite of the richest man.
In order to obtain greater profits, we even broke the promise of "concentrating on food, not touching real estate, and not returning to this project for 3 years".
Since 2002, Yurun has begun to diversify its transformation, successively stepping into real estate, tourism, logistics, finance and other industries, and expanding vigorously. One of the most remarkable was the acquisition of the Central Mall at the end of 2004, which is a central enterprise.
By around 2010, under the driving of Zhu Yicai, the giant ship of Yurun has developed into a business empire with a scale of nearly 100 billion, ranking 8th in domestic private enterprises!
However, no one expected that behind the appearance of prosperity, the storm had been brewing in the dark and quietly arrived.
In 2011, Yurun Group was exposed to "lean meat essence residue in ham intestines", followed by media exposures to the discovery of metal snaps, packaging plastics, hair and other foreign bodies in Yurun food.
Almost overnight, the Yurun Group, which originally promoted that "the food industry is a moral industry", fell from the altar and was pointed out by thousands of people.
In the end, Zhu Yicai could not withstand the tide of public opinion and was forced to resign from the position of executive director and other cadres.
But the matter is far from over, affected by the "food safety crisis", the dark wounds left by Yurun's previous brutal expansion have also begun to erupt, especially those acquired real estate projects, because of the loss of blood transfusions in the food industry, funds began to tighten.
But before the management can regain its strength, Yurun actually has another scandal - suspected of cheating the circle of money by raising pigs!
03: Falling into the abyss
Since the negative entanglement, Zhu Yicai's fortunes, like the stock trend of Yurun Group, have begun to accelerate their fall.
In 2014, he was restricted from leaving the country; in 2015, he was subjected to compulsory measures and placed under residential surveillance by prosecutorial authorities.
The Yurun Group is full of fire, the capital chain is broken, the executives leave, the real estate project is rotten, the equity is forcibly frozen, the debt defaults... Even in order to protect themselves, they were reduced to the point of selling subsidiaries at a low price.
But even so, Yurun still could not stop its own fall.
In 2017, Yurun's revenue was less than a quarter of Shuanghui's, and it was also pressed under the body by the rising star Jin Gong; in 2018, Yurun was deeply involved in more than 900 litigation cases, with a target amount of nearly 30 billion yuan; in 2019, Yurun Group's liabilities have reached 70 billion yuan, but it has also ushered in a good news - Zhu Yicai has re-emerged.
I have to say that Zhu Yicai is indeed a sword that is not old, and after returning, it is a series of chaotic actions, mortgage pigsty, transfer of real estate projects, personnel changes... It not only alleviated the debt problem, but also allowed Yurun to achieve its first profit in three years in 2020.
But there is too much money owed.
In 2021, this former "pork king" has not escaped the end of bankruptcy and restructuring.
In February of that year, Yurun Group began to enter the reorganization process, and in November, it formally submitted a bankruptcy reorganization plan, covering 122 of its subsidiaries.
Looking back at the past, Zhu Yicai resigned and went to the sea, starting with 200 yuan, relying on water to save 4.8 million assets; and entering the low-temperature meat and food industry to play "snake swallowing giant elephant", becoming the richest man in Jiangsu; since then, it has crossed many industries and created a 100 billion empire.
It can be said that if there are no several "big gambles" expansion, Zhu Yicai will not become a business legend, but unfortunately, Cheng also gambles heavily, loses and gambles heavily, and Yurun Group is finally "gambling and losing" in the final race.
Nowadays, Yurun Group has begun to apply for bankruptcy and reorganization, if it can succeed, then there is still hope for a comeback, but once it fails, it will have to enter the bankruptcy procedure of the court, at that time, not only more than 30,000 employees within the company will be laid off and unemployed, but also affect the entire industry, affecting the livelihood of millions of pig farmers and farmers.
I wish Yurun can be restructured successfully, "Nirvana rebirth"!
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Author: Xiang Nan