Author: Yun Pan
Source: Business People (ID: biz-leaders)
Ten years ago, Tsai Yanming, the 55-year-old chairman of Want Want Group, became Taiwan's richest man for the first time with a value of $8 billion in Forbes' 2012 global billionaire list.
At that time, his momentum even overwhelmed Gou of Hon Hai Group, and he firmly held this position for five consecutive years.
Why?
"Because of the great market of the mainland, it has created a prosperous and prosperous today." Cai Yanming always put this sentence on his lips.
In fiscal 2021, Want Want bid farewell to the weakness of previous years, with revenue reaching 23.985 billion yuan, a record high.
Those who pay attention to Want Want must be clear that in recent years, the momentum of Want Want has been relatively weak, as if entering a "mid-life crisis". Wangwang, whose voice is getting smaller and smaller, has been on the hot search a few days ago, and the hard-core home country has made Wangwang, who has not been "Wang" for a long time, "Wang" again.
In particular, the funny and sharp remarks of Cai Wangjia, the second son of Want Want Group, made Wang Wang's hot search soar to an explosive search. As of press time, the topic of "Want Want" has been read more than 1.24 billion times and discussed 481,000 times.
At the beginning of this year, the stock price of Want Want, which has been turbulent for many years, rose to HK$11.35, a new high since 2015, and the downward trend since then has made many investors sweat. Now on the explosive search, the position of want want to be known to more people does not know whether it can boost the market's confidence in it and carry through the mid-life crisis?
one
"You try to spend as much money as you can, but you have the ability to earn it back."
Perhaps related to the wealthy family background, Cai Yanming has never paid too much attention to wealth since he started his business, and he is relatively low-key.
"My grandfather Cai Wendao is very rich, and my father Cai Zhangshi is also very rich, and I also have some money." Cai Yanming once said this in an interview.
Obviously, he is still too modest. After listing in Hong Kong in 2008, Want Want had a market value of more than HK$160 billion in 2014, higher than Moutai in the same period, and Cai Yanming's value reached the highest us$9.8 billion in recent years in the previous year.
Unlike Wang Yongqing and other Taiwanese entrepreneurs from poor backgrounds, Cai Yanming is the standard rich second generation, and playboys and prodigal boys are the best summaries of his youth, rebellion, fights, skipping class, obsessed with movies all day, and did not finish high school.
At the age of 19, Cai Zhangshi took over the Yilan Food Factory (the predecessor of Wang Wang) founded in 1962 and threw it to Cai Yanming, who had dropped out of school.
Cai Yanming once recalled his first venture in an interview, "I can't understand the account, people don't know, I don't dare to ask, the income statement is a loss or a profit, I don't know." ”
After taking over the factory, he transformed the business of the factory from oem and export of canned food such as fish and asparagus to the production of domestic brand "Langwei Squid Silk", which resulted in a loss of 100 million, which was Cai Yanming's first "eating up".
The outside world's disdain provokes young people to refuse to lose, and to take off the hat of the loser, the only way to get the lost money back.
In the 1970s and 1980s, when Taiwan's rice resources were surplus and cheap, Tsai Yanming saw business opportunities and could double the profits if he made rice into snacks. At that time, it was popular in Japan to use rice to be puffed at high temperature and then added to the seasoning, that is, rice nuts.
Cai Yanming began his second venture in 1980, seeking cooperation with Iwazuka, one of the three major rice and fruit factories in Japan, hoping to learn from his teacher, and after being rejected many times, he finally introduced rice fruit manufacturing technology from Japan after two years of "stalking".
In 1983, Cai Yanming officially founded the Want Want brand and product Want Want Xianbei, and personally designed the mascot "Wangzai", which is said to be based on the second son Cai Wangjia.
Deeply familiar with Taiwan's strong sacrificial culture, Cai Yanming personally created a series of advertisements for wangwang in the direction of sacrifice, which not only attracted consumers, but also successfully entered the sacrificial food market.
In 1989, the unstoppable Want Want had a market share of 95% in Taiwan, beating other food brands such as Yimei to the ground.
one
"It is this great market in the mainland that has created prosperity."
In 1992, the proposal to build a socialist market economic system provided a broader space for enterprises that wanted to make a fortune.
As early as the end of the 1980s, Cai Yanming had already made preparations for Want Want to enter the mainland, and in 1989, Want Want became the first Taiwanese businessman to apply for trademark registration in the mainland.
In 1992, Cai Yanming took Want Want to the mainland to build a factory. He gave up the more open and developed coastal cities and chose Hunan, which has more advantages in rice supply, and more importantly, because Wang Wang is the first Taiwan enterprise in Hunan, he can get a lot of preferential policies.
In the same year, the other two giants of Taiwan's food, Master Kong and Unification, also seemed to have made an appointment with Want Want and came to the mainland to build a factory together.
At that time, the mainland snack market was a vast blue ocean. However, Want Want still encountered difficulties after putting into production in Hunan, brand awareness was not opened, and faced the problem of credit accounting when selling products, because the factory was remote and the transportation was not convenient, and it was extremely troublesome to recover the accounts.
Cai Yanming saw that the product was about to expire, and then decided that instead of watching the product being destroyed, it would be better to send it to schools in Shanghai, Guangzhou and other places for free, which not only opened up the popularity of Want Want, but also won the first batch of loyal consumers for Want Want.
This also led Cai Yanming to decide to target Wangwang's mainland advertising to children and teenagers. He personally planned "you want me to want everyone to want", "look at me again, I will drink you", "give me O bubbles, give me O bubbles"... Magical advertising, funny music made WangWang quickly become a household name.
Riding on the spring breeze of the policy, Want Want not only gained a firm foothold in the increasingly open mainland market and made a lot of money, but also activated the rice nut snacks in the mainland. The huge profits attracted more than 200 factories to the blue ocean, the price of rice fruits plummeted, and the gross profit margin fell all the way.
The battle-hardened Cai Yanming is determined to use a fast knife to cut the chaos strategy, expand the scale at the same time, through the launch of low-cost sub-brand rice fruit food, to reduce costs, at the same time, set off a round after round of price war, which forced back many opponents.
At that time, in order to accelerate the opening of the market, the investment promotion in various places was in full swing. In order to expand the scale of the economy, Wang Wang actively proposed himself to local governments, and it is rumored that Cai Yanming wrote more than 1,000 letters for this purpose. Cai Yanming once recalled, "I wrote to local governments to say that I would invest, hoping that the government would pay for the construction of the factory building and rent it to me." ”
Wangwang's all-round layout has made manufacturers with insufficient scale and funds lose. After eliminating many opponents, Wang Wang firmly sat in the position of the boss of Rice Fruit Food.
At the same time, Star products such as Wangzai Milk, O Bubble Fruit Milk, Wangzai Small Steamed Buns, Wangwang Crushed Ice, Wangzai QQ Sugar, And Want Little Crisp will expand Wangwang's advantages in the mainland, and the latter's market share once reached 85%.
After the consumer market stabilized, the road to capitalization of Want Want was also put on the agenda.
In 1996, Want Want was first listed in Singapore, but what surprised Cai Yanming was that this market was not active, compared with Master Kong, who was listed in Hong Kong in the same year, up to 40 times PE, so that Cai Yanming could not sit still.
Even though the procedures were complicated and risky, he was determined to delist Want from Singapore and switch to H-shares. In 2007, Cai Yanming borrowed nearly $1 billion from a consortium of banks in his private name to buy the liquid Want Want stocks in the Singapore stock market.
In this year, China Want Want Holdings Co., Ltd. was established, and the following year, Cai Yanming spun off the food and beverage business separately and listed it in Hong Kong, with the stock name "China Want Want", Cai Yanming's feelings and stance are very distinct. Since then, the mainland has also replaced Taiwan as the most important market for Want Want.
After switching to Hong Kong stocks, Want Want shares rose all the way up, and on April 14, 2014, it hit a record peak of HK$11.392. At the same time, Want Want's revenue of 23.6 billion yuan in 2013 also hit a new high at that time.
The historical opportunity of reform and opening up and the further opening up of the market economy have made Wangwang, and Cai Yanming has also seized this opportunity well, and Wangwang has gradually crossed the peak until 2013.
three
The inflection point usually comes so unexpectedly.
Want Want's previous traditional production-oriented thinking is slightly difficult under the gameplay of today's new consumer market.
Emerging food brands such as three squirrels, herbs flavor, and good shops are menacing, and "middle-aged" Wangwang urgently needs fresh strength to replenish ammunition.
In recent years, Cai Yanming's three sons, Cai Shaozhong, Cai Wangjia and Cai Wangting, have gradually entered the forefront and actively innovated in product upgrading iteration, online marketing, and online channels to share their father's worries.
It is rumored that the eldest son Cai Shaozhong was born to his ex-wife, Cai Yanming and his ex-wife divorced, did not remarry, but he has many girlfriends, and get along harmoniously, Cai Wang's family, Cai Wangting's birth is mysterious, whether it is born of a mother is a mystery.
Back to the point, Cai Yanming, who came from a social university, has always believed that "one year on the street is better than three years of study", and children studying with him is better than going to business school.
Grand Duke Cai Shaozhong entered Want Want earlier than Cai Wangjia and is currently responsible for the group's financial and capital direction, in charge of the media business.
In November 2008, Cai Yanming spent NT$20.4 billion (about 4.6 billion yuan) to acquire Taiwan's China Times Media Group. In recent years, through his newspapers and television stations, he has propagated the development of the mainland and the idea of a family on both sides of the strait.
The second son, Cai Wangjia, worked in high school like his father, and is currently in charge of want want food sector, serving as chief operating officer of want want group and vice president of milk drink business group, and is very active on Weibo; The third son, Cai Wangting, served as the deputy general manager of the drinking second business department of Want Want Group, and was also a "comic".
In recent years, Cai Wangjia has been using the online platform to maintain brand activity and promote brand trends, and vigorously promote wangwang's innovation.
This is also related to the current situation of Want Want in recent years.
Want Want has fallen all the way after hitting a record peak in 2014, falling to HK$3.382 during the session on 18 January 2016, and the stock price fell by 70% in 644 days.
At the same time, Wangwang's performance has also been declining. According to the financial report, revenue fell for three consecutive years from 2014 to 2016, at 23.1 billion yuan, 22.3 billion yuan and 19.7 billion yuan, respectively.
In fact, since 2015, in order to reverse the decline, Want Want has made a series of innovations and adjustments for products, channels, marketing, etc. on the basis of the original product plate. It has successively launched new brands such as Want Want Black Skin, Oh Yo, Nadoli, Lactic Acid Bacteria, Bitter Tea, Bond Coffee, Healthy Snack FixXBody, Wine Products, etc.
In addition to the core food and beverage, Want Want adheres to the diversified layout, sets up hospitals, and is involved in insurance, hotels, finance, pensions, media, etc., integrating them with want want brand IP. Cai Wangjia also revealed on Weibo that this year will build a Want Want Tourism Factory and a Want Want Museum.
In addition, Want Want also plays cross-border and Internet marketing, not only launching Want Want Milk Facial Cleanser and Masks, but also launching co-branded beauty, tide brands, dolls, opening home and theme stores, selling Wang Tsai's surroundings, and strengthening the operation of Want Want online channels.
From fiscal 2017 to fiscal 2020, the momentum of want want revenue decline was reversed. In the 2021 financial report a month ago, Cai Yanming said that (revenue) has grown more than 100 times compared with before the mainland investment.
This former stubborn boss has temporarily and painstakingly pulled his company back on track.
*Title image purchased from Visual China