When it comes to domestic rich people, the first thing that comes to mind is generally Li Ka-shing, Ma Yun, Ma Huateng, Wang Jianlin, etc. These male rich people, in fact, there are many hidden female rich people in China, and the next one to talk about is one of them. Few people may know her name, but she is more powerful than we can imagine. The rich woman, named Zhu Linyao, started from scratch and later became the actual controller of Huabao Group, and climbed the Hurun Rich List with a value of 49 billion yuan. But recently Zhu Linyao and her son have been investigated, what is going on? How did this mysterious rich woman get her fortune, and why was she investigated now?
In fact, Zhu Linyao can sit in such a high position, the most critical point is that she is good at "cutting leeks". As the actual controller of Huabao Group, with the smooth listing of the company, her value has also risen sharply. However, she does not seem to be interested in these invisible and untouchable "body value", after all, no matter how high the stock price will always fall one day, there is no real money and silver to come to reality, so after the listing she began to cash out. In the year of listing alone, she cashed out HK$1.518 billion, and her shares fell from 97.57% to 74.89%. At that time, the market value of Huabao Group was still rising, but she was still reducing her shares. In 2007, her shareholding ratio has dropped from 74.89% to 65.78%, and she has successfully cashed out HK$1.265 billion. In 2008, she cashed out HK$451 million again with an acquisition by Warburg. It is understood that after the backdoor listing of Huabao Group in 2006, the stock price has been rising until 2010, and the market value has risen from the initial HK$297 million to HK$39.622 billion. But Zhu Linyao cashed out year after year in the case of rising stock prices, and in 2011, only 37.71% of the shares in her hands were left.
At this time, Huabao Group's stock price fell all the way, falling by 60% in less than a year. At this time, Zhu Linyao's move was unexpected, she suddenly stopped cashing out, began to buy back the shares of Huabao Group at an ultra-low price, and in the following years, she increased her shares almost every year. In 2017, her stake has risen from 37.71% to 73.8%. Although there is a big circle in the middle, she is still the actual controller of Huabao Group, but in the process of reducing her holdings, she has put real money and silver into her pocket.
Although in the process of Zhu Linyao's "cutting leeks", he did show unusual business talents, for such talents, most people may prefer to call it "means". After all, she made a lot of money and regained the actual control of the company, but there were many people who suffered heavy losses in the process and became "leeks" that were cut.
If so, why say she was a powerful rich woman?
Zhu Linyao's strength lies not in how she cuts leeks, but in her ability to cut leeks. Take the process of cutting leeks, many people do not think that this is a great wisdom, and even some people will say that an ordinary person may be able to harvest successfully, but the key to the problem is how ordinary people stand on this platform to get the opportunity to "cut leeks"? Zhu Linyao was just an ordinary person, but she built this platform for herself to have such an opportunity. Speaking of which, I have to talk about her family history.
Born into an ordinary family in Sichuan, Zhu Linyao was admitted to university in 1986 and studied public secretarial studies. Many college students of that era, especially girls, wanted to find a stable job after graduation. But Zhu Linyao did not take the usual path, after graduation, she chose to start a business with nothing, when she was only 20 years old. Many people admired her courage after knowing it, although at that time everyone did not know whether she could succeed in the future, but seeing her have such courage, they knew that this girl was not ordinary.
Zhu Linyao took a fancy to the tobacco market and opened a flavor and fragrance trading company in Beijing. Although the domestic tobacco market has developed rapidly in those years, for a small white like her who has just entered the mall, this cake is a little too heavy. In the first few years, business did not improve. Later, Zhu Linyao decided to try another place, so he came to Shanghai. Here she met a key person who changed her career and love, and this person was Lin Guowen. Lin Guowen is not a simple person, he came from Guangdong Dianbai, the famous spice town in the country, and later moved to Hong Kong. Not only does it have an absolute advantage in the spice industry, but it also has a wide range of contacts. After the two met, they began to cooperate, each playing their own advantages, and the business gradually improved. Slowly, the two people developed feelings, so they entered the palace of marriage.
In June 1996, Zhu Linyao and Lin Guowen established Huabao Edible Spice Flavor Co., Ltd. in Shanghai. Because Zhu Linyao is better at business, she provoked the company's beams, and the two opened the business model of male and female protagonists. Zhu Linyao has always attached great importance to the tobacco market, so the main business of the company established is tobacco flavor. However, while the tobacco market is developing rapidly, more and more competitors have also poured into the track of tobacco flavors. And coupled with the particularity of the domestic cigarette industry, it is basically impossible to monopolize the market. At first, Huabao only provided products and perfume technology to cigarette factories as a supplier, but Zhu Linyao found that such a model was difficult for the company to stand out, and it was possible to be squeezed out of the track. So in 2000, she changed the traditional supply model and began to cooperate with major cigarette factories. In fact, it is a joint venture with these cigarette factories to set up a fragrance and flavor enterprise, which not only ensures the development of its own enterprises, but also makes other competitors lose the opportunity to compete.
It is understood that from 2001 to 2005, Zhu Linyao established a number of joint ventures with other cigarette factories. In 2001, Yunnan Tianhong was established as a joint venture with Hongta Group, and now this joint venture company has become a supplier of major best-selling cigarette brands on the market. Two years later, Huabao Group and Yizhong Group established Qingdao Huabao. It then acquired a 51% stake in Guangzhou Huafang and became a partner of China National Tobacco Corporation's Guangdong Branch.
In just a few years, due to the change of operating model, Huabao Group has quickly become a giant in the fragrance industry. But the company's development also has a drawback, that is, the business development is unbalanced. In the years when the company developed rapidly, more than 80% of Huabao Group's revenue basically came from the tobacco flavor business. Although Huabao Group has taken the top spot in the tobacco flavor industry at this time, Zhu Linyao also wants to make the development of the enterprise more diversified, so it has acquired a number of spice enterprises such as Shanghai Peacock Flavor and Fragrance Co., Ltd. and Xiamen Amber Fragrance Co., Ltd., and began to develop comprehensively in the field of spices.
At this time, Zhu Linyao has basically succeeded for a long time, and the next most critical step is to go public. In fact, she had already begun to prepare for the company's listing, and in March 2004, Lite Company issued ordinary and preferred shares to zhu Linyao Holdings at a price of HK$0.1 per share, and then changed its name to Huabao International. After the completion of this offering, Zhu Linyao owned 90.99% of the shares of Huabao International. In 2006, Huabao Backdoor Lite Co., Ltd. successfully completed the listing work, and since then the stock price has risen steadily. And this is the platform she has built for herself to "cut leeks", if there is no 20 years of entrepreneurial experience, how can she have the opportunity to harvest at will?
In 2008, 38-year-old Zhu Linyao entered the list of Forbes billionaires, and everyone met this mysterious rich woman for the first time. In the next few years, she started a crazy cash-out mode. Just when everyone was lamenting Zhu Linyao's amazing capital operation methods, one of her measures caused heated discussion, in fact, this is also one of the means for her cash-out. In 2019, Huabao Group announced a dividend plan for local tycoons, sending cash up to 2.464 billion yuan, and Zhu Linyao herself received more than 1 billion yuan. The key to the controversy is that Huabao's net profit in 2018 was less than 1.2 billion, but in 2019, it was able to come up with a cash dividend of 2.4 billion. However, after this controversy, the local tycoon dividend plan still exists, and Zhu Linyao's cumulative dividends in 2020 have reached 3.78 billion. Although the company's dividends are a good thing for all shareholders, in fact, in the three years from 2018 to 2020, the dividends of Huabao shares basically fell into the hands of Zhu Linyao.
In 2019, she ranked 22nd on the Hurun Women Entrepreneurs List with a value of 21 billion yuan and appeared on the Forbes China 400 Rich List. Her name also appeared on the Forbes Rich List again on November 4, 2021. At this time, the wealth has reached 49 billion, ranking 122 in the ranking.
Zhu Linyao was indeed smart, but it was clear that she had been carried away by interests. In fact, after the turmoil in 2019, many people have questioned this rich woman, and the recent news of Zhu Linyao's investigation has also confirmed this. On January 24 this year, Huabao issued an announcement showing that the company received a notice of investigation from the Leiyang Municipal Commission of Supervision, and Zhu Linyao was investigated for suspected violations of the law. In the afternoon of the same day, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission published the news of violations of laws and regulations in the tobacco system, which mentioned that the relevant personnel of Yunnan Tobacco had voluntarily surrendered due to suspected serious violations of discipline and law. Just last year, a similar situation occurred in Hunan Tobacco, where a number of senior executives were investigated for suspected serious violations of discipline and law. It is worth noting that around the same time period, Huabao Group issued the "Anti-Fraud, Anti-Bribery and Whistleblowing Management System". According to the analysis of relevant sources, the investigation of Zhu Linyao this time is likely to be related to the tobacco anti-corruption storm.
Both Yunnan Tobacco and Hunan Tobacco have close cooperation with Huabao Group. Relevant data show that from 2015 to 2017, Yunnan Tobacco was the largest customer of Huabao Group, and Hunan Tobacco was the second largest customer. From 2015 to 2017, Huabao's sales to Yunnan Tobacco accounted for 23.07%, 24.97% and 27.73% of revenue, respectively, and the sales to Hunan Tobacco reached 15.1%, 15.05% and 12.85% respectively, and the total order volume accounted for about 40% of Huabao's sales.
In addition to the cooperative relationship, There is also an abnormal interest relationship between Huabao shares and several of the investigated personnel of Yunnan Tobacco. According to the criminal verdict, Zhang Tiandong, director of the Yunnan China Tobacco Technology Center, illegally accepted US$150,000 and 1 million yuan from two general managers of Huabao's subsidiaries twice before the Spring Festival in 2017 and 2018, and then sought benefits for the group in the process of flavor procurement.
It is understood that at present, the top 10 domestic cigarette companies are all customers of Huabao International, and their contribution to its revenue is as high as more than 80%. Yunnan China Tobacco, Hunan China Tobacco, Zhejiang China Tobacco and other provincial-level China Tobacco companies are the top five customers of Huabao Group. Why has Warburg Group been able to collect so many orders? What kind of interest relationship is hidden behind this, we have no way of knowing at present. But as long as there are other illegal acts in this, sooner or later they will be investigated.
A few days after the January 24 announcement, Zhu Linyao's son, Lin Jiayu, was also investigated. The negative impact of these two events was soon transmitted to the stock market, and the stock prices of Huabao International and Huabao shares began to fall sharply, and the current decline of Huabao International has reached 66%, and the market value has evaporated by HK$47.9 billion in 4 trading days. It is understood that as of the close of January 27, the market value of Huabao shares has evaporated by 8.585 billion yuan, and the opening of the 28th once fell by more than 2%. However, when the outside world was full of controversy, Huabao issued an announcement saying that Zhu Linyao did not hold any position in the company and did not participate in the company's operation and management, so it would not have a significant impact on daily production and operation activities, and said that the current enterprise was in normal production and operation.
With the investigation of the case, this mysterious female rich woman who once called the wind and rain in the capital market has also completely fallen off the altar, and Zhu Linyao has now been placed under residential surveillance in a designated place of residence. Perhaps the day you started building a "moat" for yourself, you should have expected that one day you would be punished by the law. #Entrepreneur ##Celebrity ##富豪 #