Wanda Film's management is reinventing.
Author | Lu Yongzhi
Edited by 丨Gao Yan
Source | Mustang Finance
A month after zeng Maojun, former chairman and president, resigned, another executive of Wanda Film (002739.SZ) submitted his resignation.
On August 4, Wanda Film announced that the company's board of directors received a written resignation application submitted by vice president Xu Jianfeng, who resigned as a senior manager of the company for personal reasons.
Source: Wanda Film Announcement
According to the financial report, in 2021, Xu Jianfeng received a total of 1.967 million yuan in pre-tax compensation from the company. As of now, Xu Jianfeng holds 2250 shares of the company.
Wanda Film said that Xu Jianfeng's application to leave the board of directors took effect from the date it was served to the board of directors, and his departure will not affect the normal progress of the company's business work.
According to public information, Xu Jianfeng graduated from Shenyang Electric Power University, joined Wanda Group in 2007, and successively served as deputy general manager of the cost department of Wanda Group, general manager of hotel projects in Sanya, Wuhan and other countries, and deputy general manager of Wanda Hotel Construction Company.
According to the Financial Associated Press, an industry insider close to Wanda Film said that the pressure on performance may be the main reason for the change in management. The "conflict" of corporate culture may be one of the triggers for executives to leave office one after another.
Management "blood change" within a month
Over the past year, Wanda Film has seen frequent executive changes. Since July this year alone, Wanda Film has undergone three executive changes.
On July 4, Zeng Maojun resigned as the chairman of the board, the president and the professional committee of the board of directors of the company for personal reasons, and no longer served as the legal representative of the company.
On the second day after Zeng Maojun's resignation, Wanda Film announced that after the qualification review of the nomination committee of the board of directors, it agreed to add Zhang Lin as a non-independent director of the sixth board of directors of the company.
According to the "First Finance" report, on the day of Zeng Maojun's resignation, Zhang Lin's position in the Wanda OA system has become "chairman, president and chairman of the investment group of the cultural group".
Source: Wanda Film Announcement
Until July 22, Wanda Film issued an announcement to officially confirm Zhang Lin as the chairman of the sixth board of directors.
An industry insider pointed out that Wanda Film is an integral part of Wanda Film and Television Group, and Wanda Film and Television Group is part of Wanda Culture Group, so Zhang Lin's position in Wanda's OA system does not show "Chairman and President of Wanda Film".
On July 23, the day after Zhang Lin took over as chairman, Bu Yifei, vice president of Wanda Film, submitted a written application for resignation, and Bu Yifei no longer held a senior management position in the company due to job changes.
Now, a month after the departure of the former "number one", Xu Jianfeng, vice president of Wanda Film, also submitted his resignation. It is reported that Zeng Maojun, Bu Yifei and Xu Jianfeng are all old ministers of Wanda.
For the departure of Zeng Maojun and others, the market has different opinions, and some people believe that they know that they cannot complete high KPIs; There are also views that the incorruptible and old-fashioned Zeng Maojun has found it difficult to find the password to create a blockbuster.
According to the Economic Observer, for the change in management, especially the reason for the departure of the chairman and vice president, a Wanda Film employee believes that it is related to the performance of Wanda Film.
Affected by the epidemic, the national film box office in the first half of 2022 was only 4.11 billion yuan, down 65.6% from the same period last year. Among them, companies that mainly operate theaters have serious losses.
According to the first quarter report, Wanda Film's revenue in the first three months was 3.461 billion yuan, down 16.01% year-on-year; Net profit of 44.99 million yuan, down 91.42% year-on-year; The net profit attributable to the mother after deducting non-profit was 20.04 million, down 96.13% year-on-year.
Source: Wanda Film Announcement
The performance forecast released by Wanda Film shows that it is expected to have a net loss of 520 million to 600 million yuan in the first half of the year, turning profit into loss year-on-year.
For the reasons for the loss, Wanda Film said that about 410 theaters under the impact of the epidemic in the company's domestic theaters were suspended at the same time, accounting for nearly 51% of the company's domestic theaters, and the company's box office revenue fell sharply.
The advance and retreat of the "Zeng Maojun era"
Before leaving his post, Zeng Maojun had been involved in the film and television industry for more than ten years. In December 2020, Zeng Maojun officially took over as the chairman of Wanda Film.
In fact, Zeng Maojun did not come from the entertainment industry, he graduated from Chinese University, and has worked in Beijing Aeronautical Materials Research Institute, Beijing Bermuda Aviation High-tech Co., Ltd., and Financial Technology Company Hengbao Co., Ltd.
In 2006, Zeng Maojun joined Wanda Group and has served as deputy general manager of the human resources department of Wanda Group, deputy general manager of Wanda Hotel Construction Co., Ltd., deputy general manager of Wanda Commercial Management Co., Ltd., and executive deputy general manager of Wanda Cinema Line.
Source: Canned Gallery
In 2014, Zeng Maojun served as the director and president of Wanda Cinema Line, and the real power of Wanda Film was after Ye Ning, then vice president of Wanda Culture Group, left his post in 2016.
If we say "Ye Ning era", Wanda began to advance upstream of film production; Then the "Zeng Maojun era" is to expand the upstream and downstream industrial chain of Wanda Film.
After taking over Wanda Film, Zeng Maojun successively acquired two upstream companies of Mutual Love Interactive and New Media Eslite and derivatives companies, and also integrated Time Network to establish Wanda Media.
In addition, since 2012, Wanda Group has begun to expand overseas markets, acquiring AMC Cinema Line in the United States for US$2.6 billion, the second largest cinema line company in the United States.
Zeng Maojun continued the momentum of overseas market expansion. In 2016, legendary pictures were acquired for $3.6 billion. Since 2019, Zeng Maojun has served as a director of AMC Cinema Line.
However, from 2018 onwards, Wanda Film gradually abandoned the overseas market and withdrew from the AMC cinema line in 2021.
Source: Canned Gallery
From the performance level, since its listing, the profitability of Wanda Film has gradually weakened, mainly in the fact that the growth rate of net profit cannot keep up with the growth rate of revenue.
In 2015, Wanda Film's revenue was 8.001 billion yuan, an increase of 49.85% year-on-year; Net profit was 1.186 billion yuan, an increase of 48.05% year-on-year. From 2016 to 2018, the revenue growth rate was 40.1%, 18.02% and 23.12%, and the net profit increase was 15.23%, 10.92% and 38.74%, respectively.
In 2019, due to the impact of Wanda Film and Television's performance after the merger did not meet expectations and the provision for impairment, Wanda Film experienced negative growth, achieving revenue of 15.435 billion yuan, down 5.23% year-on-year; Achieved a net loss of 4.729 billion yuan, down 324.87% year-on-year.
Due to the impact of the epidemic, Wanda Film's revenue in 2020 was 6.295 billion yuan, down 59.21% year-on-year; The net loss for the period was 6.669 billion yuan, down 41.03% year-on-year.
The challenge of the new "old minister"
It is in such a severe market environment that at the end of 2020, Zeng Maojun took over the position of chairman of Wanda Film, and before that, the position was held by Zhang Lin.
In 2021, Wanda Film began to save itself, including opening up "franchises" and accelerating asset-light expansion; Carry out business cooperation such as script killing in the cinema line, and make full use of the idle space of the cinema line; Launched the "Wanda Film on Demand Cinema" project to solve the problem of film shortage.
In addition, Wanda Group withdrew from the board of directors of AMC in the same year, retaining only the minority stake of AMC, accumulating a total of $1.476 billion.
After a series of self-help, Wanda Film successfully turned losses into profits in 2021, achieving operating income of 12.49 billion yuan, an increase of 98.4% year-on-year, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies reached 106 million yuan.
At the 2021 online performance meeting of Wanda Film, Zeng Maojun talked about the future development direction of Wanda Film, an entertainment aircraft carrier, and announced the research and development news of meta-universe, NFT and other content.
However, judging from the financial report of the first quarter of 2022 and the semi-annual performance forecast, Zeng Maojun failed to reverse the situation. In this case, Zeng Maojun chose to leave.
After Zeng Maojun resigned, Zhang Lin once again took over the "handsome seal" of Wanda Film. In March 2000, Zhang Lin joined Wanda Group and served as the chairman of Wanda Film from November 2012 to December 2020.
Prior to his return, Zhang Lin was a director of Wanda Group, a director and president of Wanda Commercial Management Group, and the chairman of Wanda Real Estate Group.
According to wanda film sources, Zhang Lin is very vigorous and is an efficient leader, and his main work schedule in the past two months is to understand and control the cinemas in various regions of the country.
Source: Maoyan Pro
This time, Zhang Lin is facing a severe test. Originally given high hopes, "Mozart in Outer Space" did not perform as expected at the box office, and so far only received 222 million yuan at the box office.
However, fortunately, the "card face" of Wanda movies is still there. From January to March 2022, the cumulative market share of Wanda Film's theaters (including light assets) was 16%, an increase of 1.5 percentage points over the same period of the previous year, and the market share in March reached 22%, ranking first in market share.
And the market is also gradually recovering. According to the data of the lighthouse professional version, as of July 22, the total box office of this year's summer file has exceeded 4 billion yuan, which is basically the same as the same period last year, and the total number of operating theaters in the country has also exceeded 10,000 for 25 consecutive days, and the operating rate has remained above 80%.
At present, Wanda Film's film project reserves in addition to "Brother, Hello" and "Peacekeeping Riot Squad" to be screened this year, as well as "Ghost Blowing Lantern Heavenly Star", "Want to See You" and "Looking for Her". However, whether Wanda Film can reverse the performance dilemma with these films is still unknown.
In the face of market recovery, how veteran Zhang Lin platooned has become the key to the next game. Do you think Wanda Cinema can get back to the top? Welcome to leave a comment!