He was once the chairman of China's youngest public company, once owned three listed companies, managed assets of up to 15 billion yuan, and twice became rich in Shaanxi Province.
But in the most difficult time, he also had 4.8 billion in debt, and at one point he wanted to cut himself off, but fortunately, his employees did not hesitate to sell their houses to help him pay off his debts, which pulled him back from the edge of the cliff.
He is Guo Jiaxue, who became the chairman of Dongsheng Group at the age of 33, and in his glory, he once included well-known pharmaceutical companies including Yunnan Baiyao into the group.
After encountering Waterloo, he tried his best to pay off his debts, and made tens of billions of dollars, once again becoming rich in Shaanxi Province.
For Guo Jiaxue, his life is like a roller coaster, with great ups and downs.
Resigned from public office and went home to raise pigs
Guo Jiaxue was born in 1966 in Xunyang, Shaanxi Province, his father was the director of the local health center, and Guo Jiaxue later embarked on the path of pharmacy, more or less influenced by his father.
At the age of 16, Guo Jiaxue was admitted to Ankang Normal School, and during his time in school, Guo Jiaxue worked very hard, often ranking at the top of the grade and receiving many commendations.
Because of this, at the time of graduation, Guo Jiaxue was retained by the school as an outstanding graduate, changed from a student to a university teacher to teach at the school, and was also sent to Shaanxi Normal University for further study.
For the Guo family, who have lived in the countryside for a long time, walking out of a college student is tantamount to a golden phoenix in a poor ravine.
As the first college student in the village, not only Guo's father and mother, but even the whole village are proud of him.
In the years when Guo Jiaxue was studying, every New Year's Festival, there would always be villagers from the townships who came to the Guo family and sent some rice noodles, especially after Guo Jiaxue stayed in school to teach, this phenomenon became more and more common, and they all hoped that Guo Jiaxue could help more in the future.
But the pride of his parents and villagers only lasted for a while, and less than half a year after staying in school to teach, Guo Jiaxue resolutely resigned from the job bowl of university teachers and returned to his hometown in Shaanxi to start a business.
Parents are puzzled by their son's choice, and the job of a university teacher is something that many people can't ask for. What makes parents even more incomprehensible is that the son actually started the pig industry.
From a university teacher to a pig farmer, the change of identity can be said to be a long time, but Guo Jiaxue does not care, because he has already prepared everything.
Guo Jiaxue took the only 170 yuan of savings as the starting capital and began a difficult business. In the initial stage, Guo Jiaxue bought a lot of books on pig raising technology, nibbled day and night, and often asked other villagers for advice, learned from experience, and even sold his only remaining valuable courtyard at a price of 2700 yuan when funds were once lacking.
At his hardest, Guo Jiaxue slept only four hours a day, and he had to feed the pigs every few hours. After a few months, Guo Jiaxue lost dozens of pounds.
After several months of scientific breeding, Guo Jiaxue's pigs can grow to more than 200 catties each, which is better than the pigs raised by other farmers in the village.
But then, a difficult problem was placed in front of Guo Jiaxue, because the traffic conditions in the village were extremely poor, selling pigs became a troublesome thing, for this reason, Guo Jiaxue, who weighed only 120 kilograms, carried more than 200 kilograms of pigs on his back and walked through more than a dozen miles of mountain roads to the town to sell.
Although it was very hard, guo jiaxue earned the first money by raising pigs. But not long after, his pigs suffered from swine fever, and Guo Jiaxue was forced to give up raising pigs and turn to growing Chinese herbs.
Guo Jiaxue contracted a plantation in the county, hired dozens of workers, and worked in the field day and night, so that after a month and a half, Guo Jiaxue's hands were swollen by ten joints.
What is even more unfortunate is that in the winter of that year, there was a cold wave, and the Chinese herbs planted by Guo Jiaxue were almost grainless, which made Guo Jiaxue feel sad.
After these two entrepreneurial failures, Guo Jiaxue had to sit down and think about whether such a choice was right or wrong. In the end, Guo Jiaxue followed his mother's advice and came to Xi'an to break out.
In Xi'an, Guo Jiaxue has done almost everything, setting up stalls, selling computers, running business, reselling, etc. Although he has done a variety of types, fortunately, Guo Jiaxue finally found a long-term job.
In 1991, Guo Jiaxue entered the Xi'an People's Institute of Medical and Electrical Sciences, and worked all the way to the director, and for the next three years, Guo Jiaxue worked in the institute.
Acquired pharmaceutical companies and became the youngest chairman of listed companies
After accumulating a certain amount of savings, Guo Jiaxue founded his own company, named Dongsheng, specializing in the sale of medical equipment and equipment.
In two years, Guo Jiaxue painstakingly operated, the company has gradually developed and grown, and has become one of the largest medical device dealers in the northwest region, not only that, during this period, Guo Jiaxue also gave Siemens, Kodak and other well-known foreign companies as domestic agents, and the company also made a small profit.
In 1996, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity appeared in front of Guo Jiaxue.
This year, a state-owned pharmaceutical factory in Fengxiang County, Shaanxi Province, invested more than 15 million yuan to build a factory, due to poor management, in the first three years of construction, the annual sales of only more than 300,000 yuan, seriously insolvent.
In order to solve the enterprise crisis, the leader of the pharmaceutical company found Guo Jiaxue and asked him whether he would like to enter the pharmaceutical industry, in the view of this leader, Guo Jiaxue, as one of the largest medical device dealers in the northwest region, holds many hospital channels in his hands, which is the only way to solve the enterprise crisis.
In Guo Jiaxue's view, this opportunity is also unattainable. Because at that time, all pharmaceutical companies were state-owned enterprises, and if private enterprises wanted to enter the pharmaceutical industry, it was almost impossible to get state approval, and they could only enter the industry through acquisitions and other means.
What makes Guo Jiaxue more important is that this pharmaceutical factory holds a prescription drug in the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular field "Weioxin", and this drug occupies a place in the market, but it is only because the company is not good at management that it will be insolvent.
The keen Guo Jiaxue noted that if the pharmaceutical company is acquired and the operation is improved, it is likely to bring the company back to life and make a lot of money.
The excited Guo Jiaxue rushed to Fengxiang County on the same day, signed a purchase agreement with the manufacturer, and carried millions of debts.
This acquisition set a precedent for Shaanxi private enterprises to acquire state-owned enterprises, and at the same time, it also announced the rise of Dongsheng Group.
After taking over the operation of pharmaceutical companies, Guo Jiaxue prescribed the right medicine and carried out drastic reforms to the operating system of enterprises. Guo Jiaxue found that before this, because there was no sales force, it was difficult for enterprises to sell the products produced.
After Guo Jiaxue took over the enterprise, he set up a professional sales team at the first time, vigorously recruited sales personnel, and established a sales network throughout the country to promote "WeiOxin" products.
A year after taking over, the company's sales have reached 30 million yuan, not only pay off all the debts, but also net income of tens of millions of yuan, reversing the previous decline of the company. The next year, the company's turnover exceeded 100 million yuan, and Guo Jiaxue also made a lot of money.
This acquisition allowed Guo Jiaxue to see business opportunities, and in the next few years, Guo Jiaxue began a crazy acquisition road.
First, in July 1998, it acquired Xi'an Chemical and Pharmaceutical Corporation; then in 1999, it acquired Tongren Aluminum, a listed company in Qinghai, for 60 million yuan and changed its name to "Dongsheng Technology"; in the same year, it also invested in Shaanxi Jisheng Pharmaceutical, a Sino-US joint venture.
Under the continuous acquisition and mergers and acquisitions, the scale of Dongsheng Group has become increasingly large, and in 1999, with the acquisition of Qinghai Tongren Aluminum, Dongsheng Group successfully achieved backdoor listing and became a listed company.
Dongsheng Group also gradually transitioned from industrial operation to capital operation, and it is precisely because of this that Guo Jiaxue, who was only 33 years old at the time, became the youngest chairman of a listed company in China.
Crazy acquisition road
After the successful listing of the group, Guo Jiaxue's acquisition road has not stopped.
Since then, Guo Jiaxue has successively acquired Donggai Tianli, Qinghai Pharmaceutical, Lizhu Group and Hubei Qianjiang Pharmaceutical, in this period, "take-ism" has always occupied Guo Jiaxue's brain, this almost crazy acquisition, can bring glory to the enterprise, but also can pull the enterprise into the abyss.
2003 was Guo Jiaxue's craziest year, and he later recalled that in this year, almost every month, an acquisition project was completed, and this speed was enough to make all companies stunned even if it was put on the international community.
This year, after continuous acquisitions and mergers, Dongsheng Group has changed from an unknown small company to a pharmaceutical enterprise with nearly 10,000 employees and enterprise assets of more than 6 billion yuan, and has entered the top 20 in the national pharmaceutical industry.
Under the impact of this victory, Guo Jiaxue seems to be carried away, and he throws out the "Guo Jia Theory": based on the growth of his own business, the rapid implementation of super-large-scale mergers and acquisitions, and the emphasis on international joint ventures.
Such a development concept has pushed the entire group deeper and deeper on the road of mergers and acquisitions, and Guo Jiaxue even made bold statements: within a few years, Dongsheng Group will be built into a fortune 500 enterprise in the world; Dongsheng will be built into a "dream team of China's pharmaceutical industry"; and on the 30th anniversary of its entrepreneurship, Dongsheng will be developed into a multinational enterprise with an annual turnover of tens of billions of US dollars.
With such a fantasy, Guo Jiaxue continued to walk on the road of acquisition, but what he did not consider was that any company, like Dongsheng Group, was like a black hole, constantly absorbing and expanding, and in the end it would only face the situation that the group was out of control and the funds were broken, and finally declared bankrupt.
Because such a large-scale acquisition seriously violates the scientific law of enterprise development, with the expansion of scale, the operating costs of enterprises will also increase sharply, and it is easy to have uncontrollable problems.
Sure enough, although Guo Jiaxue was unimpeded on the road to acquisition, the acquisition of Yunnan Baiyao in 2003 pulled Dongsheng Group and Guo Jiaxue into the abyss, and the once-prosperous Dongsheng Group was no longer brilliant after this incident.
The group's bankruptcy debt was 4.8 billion, and it almost cut itself off
In 2003, in order to vigorously develop Yunnan Baiyao, the Yunnan government was ready to attract investment nationwide, and Guo Jiaxue participated in the bidding for the first time after learning the news, along with Huayuan, Fosun, China Resources and other industry giants.
In order to successfully win Yunnan Baiyao, Guo Jiaxue can be said to be at any cost. In the end, after several rounds of fighting and elimination, Guo Jiaxue laughed to the end and successfully joined the Yun Pharmaceutical Group.
This successful acquisition has brought dongsheng group's momentum to an unprecedented peak, and also made Guo Jiaxue a hot capital maniac.
At the same time, the market value of Dongsheng Group has also soared to 10 billion, and the industry has also been optimistic about the prospects of Dongsheng, and Guo Jiaxue has even seen the dawn of his own achievement of the world's top 500 enterprises. However, it was not long before, just the second year after the completion of the acquisition, the situation of Dongsheng Group took a sharp turn for the worse.
Since April 2004, the state has introduced new policies: shrinking credit and raising loan interest rates, which has made Dongsheng, which is already heavily indebted, even worse.
What is more serious is that the two state-owned enterprises that once provided guarantee business for Dongsheng Group were also affected by this and declared bankruptcy, and Dongsheng Group assumed joint and several liability, involving an amount of up to more than one billion yuan.
Under this influence, the stock price of Dongsheng Group fell continuously, banks have drawn loans, the group's capital chain has been broken, and Guo Jiaxue has been forced to turn to private usury.
However, Dongsheng, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, was unable to repay the loan at all, and the lenders used large trucks to pull dozens of trucks of dirt in order to collect, blocking the gate of dongsheng group and wantonly destroying, making Guo Jiaxue shudder.
According to statistics, during this period, Dongsheng Group's debts in various aspects reached 4.8 billion yuan, and Guo Jiaxue once had the idea of taking a life because he could not afford the debt.
On November 5, 2006, Guo Jiaxue sat decadently in his office, he planned to jump from the headquarters building to escape the sea of suffering at dusk, fortunately, several company executives discovered his abnormality in time, and after several kind words of persuasion, Guo Jiaxue dispelled the idea of taking his own life.
After experiencing the collapse of the sand, Guo Jiaxue regained his strength and began the eight-year road of debt repayment. Guo Jiaxue began to sell the company he had acquired that year at a low price, first selling Lizhu shares at a low price of 170 million yuan, and then selling the group's ace product "white plus black" for 1.26 billion yuan.
What makes Guo Jiaxue even more distressed is that Yunnan Baiyao, which has a market value of more than 10 billion yuan, which was acquired at a huge cost, was forced to sell at a very low price of 750 million.
In the process of repaying debts, many executives who came with Guo Jiaxue in those years paid out of their own pockets, and even mortgaged their own real estate to help Guo Jiaxue repay debts.
After several years of hard work, by the end of 2012, All 4.8 billion yuan of Dongsheng Group's debts had been repaid, and Guo Jiaxue was also highly praised by all sectors of society.
Recalling this arduous journey, Guo Jiaxue frankly said: In the past, I was young and prosperous, I was carried away by the success of the moment, and often did not consider the consequences, which made me pay a heavy price.
A comeback, committed to the revival of traditional Chinese medicine
After repaying all the debts, Guo Jiaxue set sail again and returned to the pharmaceutical industry with a new attitude, the difference is that Guo Jiaxue, who returned this time, has no previous vigor on his body, but more is the composure and calmness after experiencing the storms.
Guo Jiaxue set his sights on Chinese medicine, and the reason why he devoted himself to the Chinese medicine industry was because in 2003, the year of Guo Jiaxue's crazy acquisition and mergers, he acquired a well-known Chinese medicine company, Guangyuyuan.
This acquisition seems to be a kind of arrangement in the dark, laying the groundwork for Guo Jiaxue to make a comeback many years later.
Guangyuyuan was founded in Jiajing 20 years ago, with a history of 480 years. In the Qing Dynasty, Guangyuyuan was known as the "Four Great Pharmacies" along with Tongrentang in Beijing, Huqingyutang in Hangzhou, and Chen Liji in Guangzhou.
"How admirable it is to be able to pass on what our ancestors have done for thousands of years, and when they chose to cooperate with chinese medicine factories, they went with a mission for the revival of chinese medicine", in 2003, with such respect, Guo Jiaxue risked being infected by SARS and went to Guangyuyuan alone for many times to negotiate.
"During that time, I didn't run back and forth many times, and I remember very clearly that there were times when I was the only one on the whole plane," Mr. Guo said when he later recalled the acquisition.
In the end, with professional knowledge and management experience, the two sides reached an agreement, and Guangyuyuan was officially incorporated into the Dongsheng Group.
Even when he later repaid his debts, Guo Jiaxue had the idea of selling a wide reputation, but he finally snuffed out this idea.
After setting the goal of making a comeback with a wide reputation, Guo Jiaxue said: From now on, I want to devote the rest of my life to the cause of reviving traditional Chinese medicine culture!
In the following ten years, Guo Jiaxue combined with the management and business philosophy, through institutional reform, broadening channels, strengthening cultural publicity and other ways, the company developed Guangyuyuan into an enterprise integrating drug research and development, production and sales, and its products "Gui Ling Ji" and "DingKun Dan" were listed as confidential varieties by the state.
When asked whether he still has the dream of achieving the world's top 500 enterprises, Guo Jiaxue was surprised and smiled: it is indeed very proud to be listed in the world's top 500 companies, but that was my dream, but now my goal is not to be a top 500 company, but to be a 500-year-old enterprise.
Perhaps after experiencing the wind and waves, Guo Jiaxue put away the momentum in his heart, no longer lofty and far-reaching, but instead wanted to be a "fine and beautiful" enterprise.
Nowadays, after more than ten years of development, the annual turnover of Guangyuan has exceeded 10 billion, and Guo Jiaxue has completely shaken off the decline of the past and successfully returned to the ranks of giants in the pharmaceutical industry.
Guo Jiaxue once said that in his view, if you want to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, you must first promote culture, so he established the widely renowned Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicine Culture.
Guo Jiaxue hopes that with the promotion of Chinese medicine culture, the majority of people can restore their confidence in Chinese medicine, because this is not only self-confidence in Chinese medicine, but also self-confidence in national culture.
epilogue
From a poor pig boy, to the youngest chairman of a public company, to a discredited, billions in debt, and finally nirvana. Guo Jiaxue's life is like a roller coaster, but for Guo Jiaxue, it seems that every "fall" is for the next better "rise".
Today' Guo Jiaxue is nearly a flower, but he is still active in the traditional Chinese medicine industry, and has a wide reputation far from his management, and has long become a leading enterprise in the domestic traditional Chinese medicine industry.
He once said that to be a 500-year-old enterprise, Guangyuyuan has a history of 480 years since its inception, and believes that Guo Jiaxue will strive for excellence and hand over Guangyuyuan to the next 500 years with a better attitude.