In 2017, Hillhouse Capital Zhang Lei spent 53.1 billion yuan to buy the moribund "Chinese shoe king" Belle, and the two founders of Belle did not hesitate to cash out 13 billion yuan to leave, Deng Yao said before leaving: "Belle has run out of gas, and there is no possibility of turning back." After only two years, the two founders even repented of their intestines.
"Wherever a woman walks, there must be Belle" In 2007, at the listing site of Belle, the founder Sheng Baijiao shouted such a slogan.
Ten years later, in 2017, Belle announced its privatization and gave it to Zhang Lei, who is known as "China's Buffett", for 53.1 billion yuan.
For the founders Deng Yao and Sheng Bai pepper, Belle is like their child, watching him grow from scratch, from small to large, they grew up with Belle, from the prime of life to the twilight years.
If it weren't for the real desperation, I don't think anyone would want to sell their "children". What's going on here? Let's first look at Belle's growth.
In fact, when Sheng Baijiao shouted out that "where there are women, there are belles", this sentence is not exaggerated at all.
Belle was founded in Hong Kong in 1978. The real development of Belle began in 1998 when they entered the mainland market.
Belle found 16 individual distributors in the mainland, and then the mall began to rise, Belle had a unique vision, cooperated with major shopping malls, and seized the most core position on the first floor for its own brand, and pioneered the model of "regional distribution + department store retail terminal" in China.
Since then, Belle has been hanging up like a hanging, and quickly seized the market with the momentum of lightning and cannot cover her ears.
As the saying goes, the mall is like a battlefield, where every day is staged the story of "seeing him rise up and seeing him collapse".
With the rise of the Internet, Belle, which made its fortune by relying on traditional stores, obviously cannot keep up with the pace of modern people's shopping methods, and once opened a store in three days, it has now become a day to close hundreds of stores.
In the face of day-to-day losses, Deng Yao and Sheng Bai pepper finally couldn't hold on, and they publicly issued a "distress letter", hoping that someone could save Belle.
The building will fall, who can have so much energy? Insiders refer to Belle as "hot potatoes", and everyone respects them.
At this moment, Zhang Lei of Hillhouse Capital stood up. In 2017, he reached an agreement with the two founders to buy Belle and all of its businesses for 53.1 billion.
People wonder where this "big fool" would take this rotten job?
Zhang Lei, a native of Zhumadian, Henan, entered Chinese Min University in 1990 as a member of the Zhumadian Municipal Liberal Arts Department to study finance, and went to study at Yale university in the United States after graduation.
Years of studying finance, coupled with the smallest business talent, made Zhang Lei full of great interest in investment. Especially after China's accession to the WTO in 2000, Zhang Lei keenly felt that China, a huge economic engine, was about to take off.
In 2005, he gave up his high-paying job on Wall Street, and with years of accumulation and funds raised, he returned to China to start Hillhouse Capital.
Speaking of his first investment, it is still talked about today. At that time, Tencent faced an unprecedented business crisis because of Li Zekai's divestment, and One of Tencent's most famous businesses was social media QQ.
In a local survey in Yiwu, Zhejiang, Zhang Lei found that each business card handed over had a string of QQ numbers on it, so he did not hesitate to vote all his belongings to Tencent when Tencent was tight.
To this day, he is still thankful for his decision that year, and his investment in Tencent has already earned more than 200 times.
The appearance of Zhang Lei was like a piece of driftwood on the vast sea for Deng Yao and Sheng Baijiao, and they couldn't wait to grasp it. After the handover was completed, the two founders left the market with 53.1 billion yuan, which was a relief.
After taking over, Zhang Lei carried out several reforms, the first of which was to increase customer interaction with stores and factories. At the same time, it creates a comprehensive and three-dimensional Internet marketing model, which perfectly combines offline and online.
After more than a year of pulse consultation, Belle was like eating a 'rejuvenation pill'. In 2019, Zhang Lei integrated Thobo International and pushed it to the public, and the market value rushed to HK$60 billion as soon as it opened.
Today's Belle is on the road of steady growth, I wonder how the two founders feel now?
It can be said that in terms of investment, Zhang Lei rarely fails. Out of Tencent and Belle, Zhang Lei also invested in Gree, Fuyao Glass, Blue Moon, Weilai Automobile, as well as Ctrip, Qunar, Station B, JD Logistics...
In 2014, Buffett invited Zhang Lei to his home for dinner and told him he had a car to pick him up. When the car arrived at the door of Zhang Lei's house, Zhang Lei naturally opened the car door and sat in the back seat, after getting on the car, Zhang Lei looked at the front, immediately stunned, and quickly said sorry.
The two are the leaders in the industry, and they talk happily at first sight. After the meal, Buffett took out his wallet and handed it to Zhang Lei and said, "You are better at managing money than me, and my wallet will be handed over to you..."
In order to let more people and enterprises grow, he spent 5 years using 10 investment cases and 11 hand-drawn illustrations to write his 15 years of investment ideas and lessons into a book "Value".
Unlike a large number of books that use professional words, this book is easy to understand, because Zhang Lei expounds his views on value and investment through some past events and investment cases, just like reading stories to read investment.
If you are an entrepreneur, you can learn from "Value" to consider business development with a longer-term perspective and pattern, and if you are an ordinary worker, you will gain a unique set of investment experience and methodology. Zhang Lei also mentioned during the live broadcast that the manuscript fee of the book will be donated to charity, and it is also very good to be able to do charity when reading.
Click "Take a Look" below the image to get it.
Value My Thoughts on Investing
