Image source @ Visual China
Text | New Alliance Finance
The privatization process was initiated three times in a year, and now the boots are finally on the ground.
March 1, Jobs. US) announced that it has signed a merger agreement with Garnet Faith Limited.
Under the revised merger agreement, the purchase price per ADS decreased by 29.51% from $79.05, or $61.00, with an equity value of approximately $4.3 billion in the corresponding company. The privatization deal is expected to close in the first half of 2022.
After many twists and turns, the 18-year journey of the future worry-free US stock market has come to an end, and the follow-up is to resist the pressure to tell a new story or to leave the market? Everything is unknown.
01 Internal and external troubles
At that time, the Internet industry was in the ascendant, and online recruitment was rare. Worry-free future, and China Talent Network, Zhaopin recruitment can be called the three giants, they entered the Internet even earlier than BAT. For a long time, the online recruitment market has been occupied by these three giants, which have used large sums of money to move recruitment information from various offline channels such as newspapers, job fairs, and talent markets to the website, completing the online migration of the recruitment industry.
In just a few years, 51job 51job was listed on the NASDAQ, becoming the first share of Chinese resource service enterprises.
It was at this time that the mobile Internet began to take off, online recruitment users shifted from the PC side to the mobile end, and new players such as Boss Direct Hire and Liepin attracted attention, posing a challenge to the old giants.
Correspondingly, the revenue has also declined, and in 2019, the revenue scale of 51job increased by only 6% year-on-year, and there was a negative growth of nearly 8% in 2020.
However, from the latest financial report data, it can be seen that the large-scale investment of 51job has not substantially helped the performance.
Complex and ups and downs of development can not stop the continuous decline in performance, in the face of new players, 51job worry after the competition to delist, complete the privatization.
02 Crazy Arena
In fact, the war on online recruitment has blown the horn before the future is left.
According to the Prospective Economist report, in 2020, the market share of the three head companies of 5Job, Boss Direct and Liepin will account for 70% of the entire online recruitment industry. Its market share is: 34.2%, 18.0%, 17.3%.
Unlike 51job, which is mainly focused on the B-end, the most distinctive feature of Boss direct employment is "direct chat".
In 2016, boss direct recruitment launched an instant communication function to build a communication channel for job seekers and recruiters, and killed a bloody road when a number of online recruitment companies fought to the death.
This feature was only officially launched in mid-2020.
As of June 30, 2021, there were 7.21 million boss direct employment service enterprises, of which 83.6% were small and medium-sized enterprises, and digital technology optimization made boss direct employment gradually become profitable. In the third quarter of 2021, BOSS's direct employment revenue was 1.211 billion yuan, an increase of 105% year-on-year, and net profit was 286 million yuan, an increase of 746.63% year-on-year.
This is the second quarterly profit since the listing of BOSS direct employment, after the third quarter of 2020 of 33.8 million yuan.
In contrast, Liepin pays more attention to the high-end talent market, building bridges for professional managers and headhunters, and its profit margin has always been at a high level in the industry. However, Liepin's online recruitment model still relies heavily on the b-side, which leads to its lack of profitability.
The data shows that for a long time, Liepin's net profit has been hovering in single digits. According to the financial report of the third quarter of 2021, its revenue was 680 million yuan, its adjusted operating profit was 140 million yuan, and its net profit attributable to the mother was 74.727 million yuan. There is still a big gap compared to boss direct hiring.
The already fierce battlefield has now seen many subversives.
Although the pulse is in the workplace social track, as the base of many workplace people, the wind and grass in the workplace can be well captured. For example, the sudden death of employees of Station B and the sudden death of ByteDance employees were first transmitted by the pulse.
With the help of its own advantages, Pulse opened the "Enterprise Review" section, starting from workplace social networking, and began to try to subvert the pattern of the online recruitment industry.
According to the data, in 2021, Pulse's recruitment services linked 7.18 million workplaces and served 3,000 employer brands, a figure that increased by 200% year-on-year, and recruitment business revenue increased by 259% from last year. The strong growth rate undoubtedly shows the momentum of social recruitment.
Some young people's active social positions have also started the idea of online recruitment. In January this year, Kuaishou launched the blue-collar recruitment platform "Quick Recruitment" and began to use its own user advantages to make efforts in subdividing the track; not long ago, 58.com changed its "catch-up network" to "catch-up direct recruitment" focusing on the recruitment market, and regarded live recruitment as a senior core competitiveness.
The battle for the throne of online recruitment tends to be white-hot, but horizontally, no company has an absolute competitive advantage. In the absence of core barriers, who can win the crown is still uncertain.
03 The future is worry-free, the future is worrying?
According to public information, an investment consortium that acquired 51job includes DCP Capital Partners II, L.P., Ocean Link Partners Limited, ceo of the company, Ronghui Zhen, and the company's largest shareholder, Retract Holdings Co.
Earlier, people familiar with the matter said that as part of the agreement, Zhen Ronghui would hold about 45% of the company's shares, Recruit Holdings Co. It will hold about 40% of the shares. People familiar with the matter said that after the completion of the acquisition, the total shareholding of Dehong Capital and Ouling Investment will not exceed 9.99%.
The privatization and delisting has made the market a little more curious about the future of worry-free future.
In July 2020, Zhen Ronghui said that the company is seriously considering returning to China for listing, and whether it is in Hong Kong or Shanghai depends mainly on the relevant policies.
If it can be successfully listed in China after privatization and delisting, 51job can not only enhance its corporate value and improve its financing power, but also take advantage of the listing opportunity to reorganize and optimize resources and open up a new world.
But how easy is it to re-market?
Relevant professionals said that under the return of Chinese stocks to the tide, it is difficult for latecomers to have the previous scarcity treatment. The biggest advantage of 51job is the cost performance, but how much this advantage has to say in the capital market is not yet known.
On the other hand, this recruitment model of downloading job applicants' resumes in bulk and providing information display also has the risk of information leakage.
In March 2021, 51job 51 was exposed by CCTV's 3.15 party due to a large number of resumes flowing to the black market;
All kinds of behaviors are exacerbating the crisis of trust for the future.
Data and information security issues are a red line that job sites must not touch. In the eyes of capital, once such problems arise, it will increase uncertainty for the company's operation. The frequent data security problems of FutureHaven worry-free also make it full of variables whether it can smoothly transfer the board.
Zhang Yi, CEO of Ai Media Consulting, said that 51job has been criticized by the regulator, which can be seen that the company's sense of social responsibility is not strong, and it does not pay enough attention to user privacy protection, at the same time, the company has certain defects in the design level of the product, privacy and business independence, and the company has not been able to balance between the two, which is also a major reason for its criticism and criticism.