They are the absolute kings of the financial markets and the undisputed top players in the capital sector.
They are mysterious but directly related to the family wealth of millions of ordinary people; they have huge sums of money but have to face the possibility of no harvest at all times.
They were pushed to the top by one myth after another, and they were shot down to the bottom by repeated failures.
They are enshrined as a guideline and mercilessly ridiculed.
They are investors in China's capital market.
Hillhouse, Sequoia, Jinsha River... These well-known investment institutions have made significant investment returns in the past few decades, and they are constantly changing the development pattern of various industries in China.
What are their well-known examples? What are some unknown failures? Phoenix Finance's "Market Value Observation" column #Capital Illustrated Series # focuses on famous investment institutions and digs deep into the capital operation logic of China's top investors.
Core Tips:
1. Zhang Lei was born in Zhumadian, Henan Province, his parents are ordinary workers, and the road from "cold door children" to "China's Buffett" is doomed to be impossible to be smooth.
2. Hillhouse Capital has become famous since its establishment, betting on Tencent, betting on JD.com, trading Blue Moon, Whale Swallow belle, supporting BeiGene, settling in Gree Electric Appliances, any investment is enough as an excellent business case. In addition, Baidu, Qunar, Ctrip, Airbnb, Uber, Didi Chuxing, Meituan, Jiang Xiaobai, Heytea HEYTEA, Junshi Bio, 3SBio, WeDoctor, WuXi AppTec, Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals..... Behind these enterprises that subvert our lives are Hillhouse Capital.
3, Zhang Lei likes to say a sentence is, "Hillhouse has nothing to do with connections, we just do research." There are constant doubts in the market about its use of the identity of "strategic investor" to "cut leeks in the secondary market", and some brokerage analysts have commented on Hillhouse Capital and Zhang Lei in four words, "hand can reach the sky".
4. Hillhouse Capital has a good performance, but it does not have the ability to turn stones into gold, and there is no shortage of failed investment cases in the fields of new energy vehicles, online education, and home appliances.
body:
People in the rivers and lakes, involuntarily.
Although Zhang Lei, who has a martial arts dream, only wants to make a fortune in a muffled voice, his status and strength do not allow it.
Yesterday, Zhang Lei was on the hot search again, the reason is that Zhang Lei was rumored to be "border control".
This is not the first time That Zhang Lei has recently been involved in controversy, just a few days ago, the online education industry "collapsed", and investors found that Zhang Lei, who has been shouting "be a friend of time", has already withdrawn with Hillhouse Capital.
Phoenix Finance "Market Value Observation" also found that according to the position data, in the third quarter of 2020, Hillhouse Capital has actually begun to reduce its holdings in the secondary market. In November of that year, Hillhouse Capital released the "Hillhouse Capital Group Sustainable Value Investment Impact Report", which quoted Zhang Lei's famous sentence "Education is an investment that never needs to be exited".
Hillhouse's aura
Recently, a financial broadcaster exposed his experience of being "killed pigs". It is reported that he received a document printed with the "Hillhouse Capital Invitation Letter", which stated that Hillhouse Capital will recruit agents in China in 2021.
Although in the follow-up fraud process, the other party did not have a novel "creativity" and still followed the old routine of QQ group recommendation stocks, but the big V was still overwhelmed by the aura of Hillhouse Capital and suffered heavy losses.
From this case, we can feel that the low-key Hillhouse Capital and Zhang Lei have been mythologized in the eyes of investors.
Founded in 2005, Hillhouse Capital's first funding came from the Yale Endowment Fund of US$20 million, and the current management scale has exceeded 600 billion yuan, making it one of the largest private equity investors in Asia.
Hillhouse Capital's name is taken from Hillhouse, a road that runs across the Yale School of Management, and Zhang Lei translates Hillhouse as "Hillhouse", which means "tall building".
The road is lined with tall elm trees, and in late autumn, the red elms look infinitely elegant against the background of Yale University's Gothic architecture, and the British literary hero Dickens praised it as "the most beautiful street in the United States".
Liu Qiangdong, the founder of Jingdong, who is not foreign, quipped at the 2015 Harvard China Forum, "You see Hillhouse Capital, listening to this name, it is not a good idea, but I can tell you that from 20 million US dollars to 18 billion US dollars, in 10 years, its growth rate is not slower than any excellent fund company in the world."
All success is the success of values, "find the best company, be a friend of time" is Hillhouse Capital's well-known investment values.
However, Zhang Lei, whose ancestral home is henan, prefers to summarize Hillhouse Capital's investment philosophy with three ancient sayings, one is "Shouzheng uses qi", the other is "three thousand weak waters, but take a scoop", and the third is "Peach and Plum do not speak, the next is a mystery", these three sentences are from the "Tao Te Ching", "Analects" and "Historical Records".
The first two are biased towards methodology, summed up as independent, focused and professional in searching for investment opportunities within the scope of ability, and the third is to indicate the investment direction of Hillhouse Capital, that is, to invest in creating the most valuable industries and companies for society and others.
In 2020, Zhang Lei sorted out his life experience and investment philosophy during the epidemic and published a book called "Value", which wrote:
"In years of investment practice, I have gradually come to understand that the victory of long-termism is not only related to the results of investment, but more importantly, in the journey of investment, to find the door to create value, with a group of like-minded people, and entrepreneurs with a great view of the pattern, work together, cut through thorns, and create the most beneficial value for society and others." What is even more gratifying is that this long-term path has become interesting because of like-mindedness and the creation of value."
Taking this investment concept as the foundation, the investment "temperament" of Hillhouse and Zhang Lei is different, allowing people to see that the original investment can perfectly integrate social and economic benefits, and investors do not have to live an ascetic life, nor do they have to rush to make quick profits and mercenary intentions.
Zhang Lei believes that adhering to this investment standard, time and society will definitely give rewards, and often continuous and huge rewards. And that's true from the results. According to media reports, hillhouse capital's annualized rate of return in the past 15 years has reached 39%, which is 18% higher than the annualized rate of return of Berkshire run by stock god Buffett, so he is also called "China Buffett" by the media.
It is worth mentioning that Zhang Lei's investment philosophy and investment performance have also been praised by Buffett himself. Zhang Lei was invited to Buffett's banquet, but unlike Duan Yongping, Zhao Danyang and Sun Yuchen, Zhang Lei was invited by Buffett and personally drove to receive. After the meal, Buffett also specially gave Zhang Lei a wallet and said to him: "You manage money, you are really better than me."
Zhang Lei's counterattack
Zhang Lei is low-key but not mysterious, although he has eaten foreign ink and is doing the financial industry of "Xuanzhi and Xuan", he feels very grounded.
Many people who watch his interviews will have two feelings, one is a cheerful laugh, and the other is some "talkative", in short, it will not associate him with the murderous financial predator at all.
In 1972, Zhang Lei was born in Zhumadian to a dual-career family, his parents are ordinary workers, and the road from "cold door children" to "China's Buffett" is doomed to be impossible to be smooth.
Zhang Lei's academic performance from an early age was not good, and the minimum admission line in junior high school at that time was 140 points, and he only scored 141 points.
Because his parents were busy at work, he often "threw" Zhang Lei to a relative who worked in the library, and Zhang Lei, who was locked in the library, was "forced" to develop the habit of loving books.
Zhang Lei's reading and hunting range is very wide, in addition to textbooks are loved, martial arts novels, prose poetry, character biographies, etc. are involved, so Zhang Lei also has a martial arts dream of fighting swords to go to the end of the world, it is said that he also wants to go to the Shaolin Temple to learn Gaishi martial arts.
Reading can change one's destiny not only because reading books can learn knowledge, but also be influenced by profound thoughts.
Zhang Lei was deeply influenced by a sentence in the former Soviet writer Mikhail Sholokhov's "Quiet Don".
"People are there deciding their own and others' destinies, but I'm herding horses here, how can this be?" I should flee, or I will sink deeper and deeper and unable to extricate myself."
Since then, Zhang Lei decided to leave Zhumadian and go to the outside world to see, so he became serious about his homework, eager to enter a better university, go to a bigger city, and receive the best education.
In the third year of high school, Zhang Lei finally got the "protagonist script", and he began to study seriously, and he was admitted to the Department of International Finance of Chinese Min University as a liberal arts champion in Henan Province.
It is said that Zhang Lei also struggled to study because he was inspired by his idol Shi Yigong.
Coincidentally, Shi Yigong is also a Zhumadian person, or the senior of Zhang Lei High School, Zhang Lei was deeply moved after reading some of Shi Yigong's articles, and felt that life was short and important.
Shi Yigong is also indeed a cattle man, and before he could complete his postdoctoral research project, he was hired as an assistant professor at Princeton University. Since then, Princeton University has provided him with a 200-square-meter laboratory and nearly $500,000 in start-up funds, a treatment that many people could not match at the time. In the short 9 years that followed, he earned the highest-ranking professorship at Princeton University and became a leader in the school's Department of Molecular Biology.
Shi Yigong's admiration is not only his academic achievements, but his heart of a child. In 2008, Shi Yigong, who is already an internationally renowned structural biologist and tenured chair professor at Princeton University in the United States, made a decision that surprised many people in the face of broad career prospects and superior living conditions: he gave up all this and resigned to return to China.
In his opinion, "Patriotism is the simplest feeling, and who does not love their mother?" This simple patriotic sentiment may be related to the influence of Shi Yigong, whose grandfather was named Shi Ping, a veteran of the New Fourth Army who was once deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress.
A few years later, in CCTV's "Meet the Big Coffee" program, the camera captured a meeting between Zhang Lei and Shi Yigong.
This is not the first time they have met, but in the face of idol Zhang Lei is still slightly restrained, but he has promised to help Shi Yigong solve the 300 million yuan fundraising problem of Westlake University, and perhaps the most fulfilling thing in life is this.
Compared with the hindsight of learning, Zhang Lei showed his business talent at a very young age, and at the age of 7, in order to subsidize his family, Zhang Lei set up a stall near the railway station, rented his comic book to waiting passengers and passers-by, and later he also learned to adjust his business strategy according to the market situation, package and sell magazines and small foods to make money.
In the summer after the college entrance examination, Zhang Lei earned 800 yuan selling magazines, mineral water, instant noodles and Hunan sausages, and the monthly salary of civil servants at that time was only 100 yuan.
Zhang Lei often joked with the people around him, this small business in the words of the current Internet circle, this should be called "sharing economy", if there was venture capital at that time, maybe this small business can also pull financing and become a "unicorn".
Every encounter in life is the best arrangement, and this wonderful experience has also left a deep imprint on Zhang Lei, that is, to be able to read and think quietly in a noisy environment, which is not a simple thing.
Think of hillhouse capital now, in the impetuous and noisy capital market to do research in a down-to-earth manner, really like the teenager who read at the train station.
During the college years, Zhang Leichao's popularity, social research with his classmates won a TV set with the largest size at that time, and organized a simulated stock speculation contest on CCTV.
However, what is surprising is that after graduation, Zhang Lei did not choose to stay in the financial system such as banking and securities to find a job, but chose to go to Minmetals Group, in his own words, he did not choose Kangzhuang Avenue, but another way.
Zhang Lei hopes to feel the internal logic and great potential of China's economy from the perspective of the real economy, and he has indeed benefited a lot during this period. But what Zhang Lei did not expect was that this work experience of Minmetals Group added a lot of difficulty to his subsequent investment work.
A failed school career
In the late 1990s, there was a wave of study abroad fever in China, coupled with the contact with many foreign customers during the work of Minmetals, Zhang Lei was very curious about the outside world, and he was eager to see it in person.
In 1998, Zhang Lei received a yale scholarship and joined the team of studying abroad to Pursue an MBA and International Relations degree at Yale University.
Zhang Lei's reason for choosing Yale is very simple, not how good the university is, but Yale University is the only one of the 7 universities he applied to that are willing to offer scholarships. In addition, Yale University has also set up a double master's degree, Zhang Lei can study for an MBA and international relations degree at the same time, which is undoubtedly the best choice for Zhang Lei, who is shy but also interested in politics, economics, international politics and relations.
However, Zhang Lei was a bit dumbfounded to go to the United States, and the scholarship provided by Yale University was only one year, and the tuition and living expenses behind it were completely unfinished.
In order to study and make a living, Zhang Lei had to find a job. But as mentioned above, all of Zhang Lei's work experience is related to the Minmetals Group, which cannot be beaten by investment, and it is not easy to knock on the door of Wall Street.
In a speech at the National People's Congress, Mr. Zhang shared a difficult story about his job search, in which he was interviewed by a management consulting firm in Boston, where the interviewer asked to analyze how many gas stations should be in a given area.
Most of the students who participated in the interview were calculated according to the basic consulting company logic and used formulas, but Zhang Lei did not, but asked the interviewer a series of questions:
First, why should there be a gas station? People go to the gas station, may not be all for refueling, it may be to go to the convenience store there, if there is a relationship with the convenience store, then the correlation with the car is reduced, not only to calculate the number of cars, but also to pay attention to population density. Second, do all vehicles need to be refueled? Will there be some vehicles in the future that don't need to refuel at all? Or will new modes of transport appear? ......
The interviewer eliminated Zhang Lei with a look of shock on his face, and looked sympathetically before parting, saying, "You may lack the ability to be a consultant."
However, from this interview, we can see that Zhang Lei has a different thinking logic, and he is really not suitable for being a consultant, because what he cares about is not the investment, but the value that can be brought behind the investment.
When all the doors were closed to Zhang Lei, by chance, Zhang Lei pushed open the Yale investment office, and the interviewer was his later mentor Swenson.
As the chief investment officer of the Yale University Endowment Fund and an investment tycoon with buffett, Swenson's questions are fanciful, professional and tricky, and Zhang Lei does not remember how many answers he did not know.
But this series of "don't know" made Swenson decide to hire Zhang Lei, who later recalled, "Many times, honesty is the most important quality." I haven't met such honest students, and it's normal to have a lot of questions that don't know the answers, but most people choose to cover up." This also officially opened the door to Zhang Lei's investment, and only then did he have the follow-up story of Hillhouse Capital.
Before graduating from Yale, Zhang Lei also had a wonderful vignette. In 2000, the lunar Chinese New Year's Eve, less than half a year before Zhang Lei got his master's degree, but the impulse to start a business still made him return to China.
At a securities company in Zhongguancun, Zhang Lei started his first venture in two large 14-square-meter apartments, founding SinoBIT China Entrepreneurship Network. The main business of China Entrepreneurship Network is to help Chinese Internet companies to raise funds, and after only half a year, the company achieved profitability and obtained financing.
At that time, Zhang Lei firmly believed that China's Yahoo and Amazon would be born within 5 years, and the China Entrepreneurship Network he founded was the catalyst for that revolution. Unfortunately, man is not as good as heaven. After the spring of 2001, the global Internet bubble burst, and the China Entrepreneurship Network disappeared, which also announced that Zhang Lei's first entrepreneurship ended in failure.
Hillhouse Capital's territory
Hillhouse Capital has become famous since its inception, betting on Tencent, betting on JD.com, trading Blue Moon, Whale Swallow Belle, supporting BeiGene, settling in Gree Electric Appliances, any investment is enough to be an excellent business case.
In addition, Baidu, Qunar, Ctrip, Airbnb, Uber, Didi Chuxing, Meituan, Jiang Xiaobai, Heytea HEYTEA, Junshi Bio, 3SBio, WeDoctor, WuXi AppTec, Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals..... Behind these enterprises that subvert our lives are Hillhouse Capital.
Seeing this series of corporate names, many people may lament the "vastness" of Hillhouse Capital's territory, but the author was shocked by its foresight.
To know that more than a decade ago, although these companies were at the forefront of technology or industry, they were not considered hot, and in that era, the investment institutions that could pay attention to them were already a minority, let alone able to gain insight into value and invest.
Recently, Hillhouse Capital is particularly concerned about the science and technology track, in a special fund roadshow of a technology industry track mentioned that the technology track, whether it is the demand side or the supply side, the development speed, the quality and quantity of industry supply are constantly accelerating, the past 12 to 18 months and the next 3 to 5 years, are a historic, unprecedented, unprecedented structural window period.
Hillhouse Capital summarized the investment direction of the entire science and technology field into 4 major tracks: the first track is the field of integrated circuits and semiconductors; the second field is cutting-edge science and technology projects, including quantum computing, brain-computer computing, and aerospace manned spacecraft related projects; third, new energy or new power vehicles; fourth, new terminals, that is, intelligent hardware.
According to incomplete statistics of public information, Hillhouse made more than 80 shots in the field of hard technology in the first half of the year. Taking the new semiconductor as an example, the current layout of Hillhouse has been quite dense, core Yaohui, core Huazhang, horizon, Tianke Heda, Xingsi Semiconductor, financing big household Biling Technology and Nebulas Zhilian, respectively, corresponding to the most upstream IP and EDA design of the chip industry chain, to the automotive autonomous driving chip in the application chip, silicon carbide power devices, extremely difficult mobile phone baseband, and then to the general-purpose GPU and DPU.
It is worth mentioning that Hillhouse Capital's investment is to look up at the "sea of stars" and also eat "fireworks in the world", such as clothing, noodle shops, dog food, coffee, beauty, education... These areas have relevant investment cases.
Of course, the premise of investment still needs to integrate social benefits and economic benefits, such as the once-popular e-cigarette project, phoenix network finance "Market Value Observation" noted that Hillhouse Capital is rarely involved.
There is no human touch
Zhang Lei of Hillhouse Capital and Shen Nanpeng of Sequoia Capital are known as twin stars in the investment industry because of their high investment returns and many star projects.
However, the investment styles of the two companies are completely different, Shen Nanpeng's investment is stable and accurate, and an investment company should be the appearance of Sequoia Capital to the extreme.
Zhou Hongyi, the founder of 360, once said: "Shen Nanpeng is a shark, as long as he smells blood, he will rush over desperately." ”
Zhang Lei pays attention to "intensive cultivation" and prefers in-depth research, so Hillhouse Capital is more like "farming civilization". Therefore, one of the things that Zhang Lei likes to say is, "Hillhouse has nothing to do with connections, we just do research."
The story that is talked about in the market is That Zhang Lei's "people are stupid and have more money" bet on Jingdong. At that time, Jingdong because of consecutive years of losses, investors have withdrawn investment, helpless Liu Qiangdong found Zhang Lei, who also graduated from the National People's Congress.
It is said that Liu Qiangdong's biggest hope is to raise $75 million, but Zhang Lei had to give him $300 million, and also left the famous sentence "Either let me invest $300 million, or I won't invest a penny."
$300 million was not a small amount of money for Hillhouse Capital and Zhang Lei at the time, so daring to bet on JD.com was not a matter of will, but based on in-depth research on the industry.
According to Zhang Lei, "This business itself is a business that needs to burn money, and it is impossible to see the core competitiveness without burning enough money in the logistics and supply chain system." Even if this model is only operated in a few big cities, it will cost at least 2.5 billion, and Liu Qiangdong will need 75 million US dollars, and even experiments cannot be done."
It is said that the next day, Zhang Lei flew to the United States with Liu Qiangdong and stayed at Walmart's headquarters for four or five days to fully understand the logistics network and warehousing system.
Although Zhang Lei did not go deep into the front line of the enterprise, he thought deeper, farther and more thoroughly than Liu Qiangdong thought, and this profound understanding of the industry and the enterprise was based on solid research.
Afterwards, Zhang Lei's vision was also proved, and Jingdong built an insurmountable "moat" through self-built logistics. Every time Liu Qiangdong talks about this "moat", he proudly says that even if competitors spend 100 billion yuan, they cannot replicate it.
Of course, there is not much controversy in the industry to say that Hillhouse Capital's research ability is strong, but Zhang Lei said that he did not have connections, and many people laughed and said nothing.
In recent years, Hillhouse Capital has successively participated in the fixed increase projects of companies such as Gloria Ying, Huichuan Technology, Ningde Times, Tongwei Shares, Oriental Yuhong, BYD, BGI Gene and LONGi Shares, and has earned a lot of money, which is obviously not like people without connections. There are constant doubts in the market about Zhang Lei's use of the identity of "strategic investor" to "cut leeks in the secondary market".
In response to hillhouse capital and Zhang Lei's early withdrawal from the online education industry, some brokerage analysts commented on four words, "hand can reach the sky".
Hillhouse Capital's investment style
"Sun Tzu's Art of War" cloud, "plan and then move", the other side of Hillhouse Capital's solid research is the decisiveness of investment, dare to re-position the layout under the big track.
This investment style is even more pronounced with the continuous increase in the scale of Hillhouse Capital in recent years. The industry describes them as investing like a planned military, deep and systematic.
Hillhouse Capital's most successful track layout is in the field of medicine, since 2014 began to invest in many innovative enterprises in the health industry chain, including PD-1 innovative drugs, CRO/CDMO, ophthalmology, orthopedics, stomatology, assisted reproduction, tumor radiotherapy, minimally invasive surgery, chain pharmacies, medical laboratories, medical artificial intelligence, etc., shaping a very long-term investment track, and building a deep and wide dynamic moat of continuous innovation. Deeply involved and witnessed the golden moment of the development of the pharmaceutical and medical industry.
The same is true in the photovoltaic field, Hillhouse Capital became the second largest shareholder of LONGi shares with a large sum of 15.8 billion yuan in 2020, and before that, he had invested in Xinyi Solar, Tongwei shares, etc., which means that Hillhouse has pocketed all the head enterprises in the photovoltaic industry. In addition, the upstream and downstream industries of the photovoltaic industry, such as silicon materials, silicon wafers, cells, and modules, have been involved in hillhouse capital.
Another great thing about Hillhouse Capital is that it is good at "building an ecology". Hillhouse Capital has many investment projects but few failure cases, mainly due to their good at integrating corporate resources and achieving the effect of 1+1 greater than 2.
Industry insiders close to Zhang Lei said, "Zhang Lei would often say that Hillhouse is an Evergreen Fund. Now, What Zhang Lei often hangs on his lips is to use IT, the Internet, and new technologies to empower all traditional enterprises. Evergreen is not making quick money, but wants to make the whole ecology bigger and meet the needs of human progress. ”
Stop mythologizing Zhang Lei
Hillhouse Capital and Zhang Lei have good performance, but they do not have the ability to turn stones into gold, and there are no shortage of failure cases in the fields of new energy vehicles, online education, and home appliances.
However, Zhang Lei is very frank with the outside world and has never shied away from these failure cases. He once said, "The most important thing in the cultivation of investors is intellectual, that is, whether you can honestly face yourself, honestly and sincerely measure yourself." If every day your colleagues say that you are too great, and we are proud and complacent, we are not far from failure; everyone tells you that you have truly grasped the truth, then we are not far from failure."
One of the most painful failures since the establishment of Hillhouse Capital was Aiwu Yoshiya, although it was not a big investment, but due to the company's collapse in 2019, this investment was zero.
In a media interview, Zhang Lei made a profound reflection on this investment, saying, "We must be in awe of the basic principles and laws." The Internet entering the traditional industry is not as simple as "subversion", and the laws and characteristics of the traditional industry cannot be ignored, but should be learned from the advantages and strengths of the traditional industry with the mentality of "+ Internet". New Internet technologies should empower traditional industries by co-drivers, rather than grabbing driver seats in traditional industries."
In the secondary market, hillhouse capital's mistakes have also been exposed more due to data disclosure. For example, in the fourth quarter of 2019, Zhang Lei cleared a number of new energy vehicle stocks, including Tesla and Weilai. In the following year, Tesla rose 10 times, and Weilai rose 20 times;
For example, in 2018, Liu Qiangdong was involved in the "Minnesota incident", Zhang Lei immediately reduced his holdings in JD.com and increased his holdings in Ali, while JD.com's stock price more than doubled, significantly outperforming Ali.
The most "ridiculed" case by investors is bet on Gree and liquidated. In 2019, Hillhouse Capital acquired 15% of the equity of Gree at a price of 46.17 yuan per share and a total transfer price of about 41.66 billion yuan, which has also become the largest investment of Hillhouse Capital in recent years. At the same time, because the entry into Gree and the development do not conform to their own investment logic, liquidate the Midea Group that has been held for many years.
Judging from the results, the transaction was not successful, and the Midea Group doubled its stock price at the highest level since hillhouse capital liquidated, while Gree's stock price reached a maximum of 69.79 yuan, compared with 46 yuan when Hillhouse Capital intervened, an increase of less than 50%.
As of now, the stock price of Gree Electric Appliances has fallen to 48 yuan, which is infinitely close to the price at the time of Hillhouse's intervention.
As for why he reduced his holdings in Midea and entered Gree, Zhang Lei explained: "It is not that Midea is not good, Gree is perfect, but as far as the current situation is concerned, and the possibility of reform of the two companies in the future, Gree is more in line with Hillhouse's investment logic."
But the bad thing is that although Zhang Lei holds a large proportion of shares in Gree Group, in the face of the strong and wayward Miss Dong seems to have lost her previous magic, and does not have much say, let alone implement her ideas.
Recently, Gree Electric Appliances threw out a 3 billion yuan employee stock ownership plan, of which "50% off shares", "per capita 250,000 yuan", "Dong Mingzhu or Floating Ying 800 million" and other accused of cutting "leeks" have been questioned continuously, while on the other hand, the Midea Group has frequently launched a repurchase and increase plan to protect the disk, and the two contrast highlight the embarrassment of Hillhouse Capital.
Recently, the great rout of the education industry has involved Hillhouse Capital, which was previously heavily invested in this industry, into the whirlpool of public opinion.
For a profit-oriented investment institution, buying and selling is a free thing, but the controversy is that Zhang Lei is secretly retreating while making a high-profile statement about the education industry.
In mid-November 2020, Hillhouse Capital released the "Hillhouse Capital Group Sustainable Value Investment Impact Report", which quoted a famous sentence from Zhang Lei in an interview with CCTV in 2018, "Education is an investment that never needs to be exited".
Frankly speaking, the education industry in 2018 has not yet been rolled into today's bottom, and online education companies do not have so many magical behaviors, not to mention that he expresses his views on this industry, rather than a specific company, Zhang Lei's statement is beyond reproach.
However, this report was released in mid-November 2020, and Phoenix Finance "Market Value Observation" found that before the release of the report, that is, in the third quarter of 2020, Hillhouse Capital had actually begun to reduce its holdings in the education sector in the secondary market, and in this year's first-level quarter, that is, before the collapse of education stocks, almost all education stocks were liquidated.
If the operation for a certain stock can also be explained as the company's development is inconsistent with its own investment philosophy, and for the industry to carry out such a simple and rude reduction, I am afraid that the reason is not so simple, as for what to smell and reduce the holding in advance, Hillhouse Capital has not yet spoken out.
epilogue:
Fame is sometimes like a baggage, the bigger the fame, the heavier the baggage, and the most terrible thing is that there is everything in this baggage.
There is reputation, there is wealth, there is status, there are friends, there is sound, there is alcohol, but there are also burdens, transgressions, slander, provocation, conspiracy, killing.
Therefore, people will eventually understand a sentence: people in the rivers and lakes, involuntarily.
Zhang Lei has a martial arts dream of fighting swords, and he hopes that others will evaluate him as an investor with true temperament, enthusiasm, integrity, willingness to help others and help others succeed.
However, since Zhang Lei is already in the midst of the rivers and lakes, he is actually unable to help himself.
Imagine zhang lei did not sell the stock of online education, would jianghu praise him as a "friend of time"? No! At that time, the sound of questioning his "stepping on the thunder" will be more violent.
If he hadn't parted ways with Li Bin, the brother of mutual taoism, but instead gambled on Weilai's stock and enjoyed 20 times the investment income, would the jianghu praise him as a friend of time? Yes! Because the money he makes is enough to shut the mouths of his doubters.
Therefore, the business is still business after all, the jianghu is still the jianghu after all, and the road in front of Zhang Lei is such a road, he has long been involuntary.
Resources
1. "22 medical IPOs in 2020, where is the secret of hillhouse investment success?" Securities Times
2. "Hillhouse Capital "Photovoltaic Bureau": After the 15.8 billion high takes over LONGi, the next bet will be re-bet on whom", Huaxia Energy Network
3, "VC first brother" Shen Nanpeng and "PE first brother" Zhang Lei, two behind-the-scenes capital bigwigs can only say so much, good big things
4. "Value", Zhang Lei