Zhang Lan, the founder of Qiujiangnan, only used 20 years to create the legendary myth from washing dishes from scratch to creating the Chinese catering industry, but at the highest moment, she lost two games with capital and lost the catering empire she had built.
In an interview with reporters in 2007, Zhang Lan proudly said that we now have all our own funds and do not have a penny of bank loans. At that time, Zhang Lan would not have thought that just a few years later, the Pretty Jiangnan brand that condensed her half-life work would have nothing to do with her.
In 1958, Zhang Lan was born in Beijing, because her parents were branded rightists, she was only ten years old and followed her mother from Beijing to Xiaogan, Hubei, in the days of Hubei decentralization, Zhang Lan's mother suffered from rheumatism, young Zhang Lan shouldered the burden of the family, feeding pigs, herding cattle, carrying water, planting seedlings, and doing everything. After ten years in rural Hubei, she returned to Beijing with her parents and was recruited into the Beijing Light Industry Bureau with her basketball expertise.
In 1988, his uncle, who was far away in Canada, returned to China to visit relatives. With the purpose of changing the living conditions of her family, Zhang Lan followed her uncle to Canada. At that time, her son Wang Xiaofei was only eight years old, which became the only concern in her heart that she could not let go.
During his time in Canada, there was no entertainment, no enjoyment, he worked 12 hours a day and saved all the money he earned. He secretly set himself a goal to earn enough $20,000 to return home. In order to make money quickly, Zhang Lan works six jobs a day, works in a barbershop, can earn two dollars by washing a head, works as a stevedore in a restaurant, carries 40 pieces of pork a day, each piece of pork is nearly a hundred pounds of meat, after cutting pork, cut fries in the back kitchen, everything is several baskets, after drying, start washing dishes, and earn $3.50 an hour.
During her days in Canada, she put her son's photo upside down at the end of the bed and quickly buttoned it down at a glance. She was too afraid that family affection would break her inner defenses, so in this way, in three years, with 20,000 US dollars in savings, Zhang Lan stepped on the plane back to China, that year, she was 34 years old.
In 1992, Zhang Lan opened a restaurant in Beijing, named Alan Restaurant. Zhang Lan knew very well that the hard-earned money he had accumulated for three years was hard-won, and he poured almost all his heart and soul into this small school. In the small restaurant, the night before the opening, Zhang Lan stayed in this small shop for a long time, she understood what failure meant to herself and her family, this entrepreneurship, she could not lose, she could not afford to lose.
Under her painstaking management, the business of this small hotel is getting better and better day by day, and in just a few years, the daily turnover has exceeded 500,000 yuan, and the annual turnover has reached 200 million yuan. But what is surprising is that Zhang Lan chose to sell the nine other branches of Alan and two other stores when the business was at its peak, selling a total of 60 million yuan. With these savings, she started a new round of entrepreneurship.
In 2000, Zhang Lan opened a boutique Sichuan restaurant in Beijing World Trade Center, and soon became famous, becoming one of the top Sichuan food brands in China, and chain stores quickly opened all over China.
In an interview with the media, she publicly stated that she would be the LV of the catering industry, and would open hundreds of stores around the world in the future, while she also completed the IPO listing of Qiujiangnan.
In 2008, the 29th Summer Olympic Games were held in Beijing, and Zhang Lan also ushered in the peak of her career, and Yu Jiangnan was successfully selected as the only Chinese food supplier for the Beijing Olympic Games. Taking advantage of the east wind of the Beijing Olympic Games, the passenger flow of Qiujiangnan has increased significantly, and it is even more popular in the catering industry. Faced with such a good situation, Zhang Lan struck while the iron was hot and launched the Qiujiangnan listing plan.
In the second half of 2008, Qiujiangnan contacted more than 20 domestic and foreign investment institutions, and finally chose Dinghui Investment. Dinghui Investment was a well-known investment institution in China at that time, and participated in well-known enterprises such as JD.com, 360, and Lianjia. Wang Gongquan, the person in charge of Dinghui Investment at the time, was very optimistic about Qiu Jiangnan, and he and Zhang Lan saw each other and talked happily. It is said that the investment intention was made at that time, and Zhang Lan also trusted him very much, and soon signed the contract.
In the second half of 2008, Dinghui invested 200 million yuan in Qiujiangnan and obtained 10.53% of the shares of Qiujiangnan, according to the proportion, the valuation of Qiujiangnan was about 2 billion yuan, and the terms of the investment at that time were unknown to the outside world. However, some people speculate that the two sides agreed that Qiujiangnan needs to be successfully listed by the end of 2012. In fact, this is also in line with the demands of both parties, Zhang Lan with the help of capital to quickly go public, to make the company bigger, for CDH, Qiujiangnan listing, he can cash out in the stock market and recover his investment.
In 2009, Zhang Lan was rated as the third place in the Hurun Catering Wealth List, worth up to 2.5 billion yuan, and Yujiangnan is already a veritable leader in the domestic high-end catering industry.
In 2009, Xiang'eqing, another brand of domestic high-end catering, was the first to be listed on the domestic A-share market. Xiang'e Qing and Qiujiangnan were founded almost at the same time, and are also positioned as mid-to-high-end catering brands, and Qiujiangnan is not inferior to Xiang'eqing in all aspects. And with the identity of the only Chinese food supplier for the Olympic Games and the World Expo, Qiu Jiangnan is even better than Xiang'e Qing in terms of fame. The listing of Xiang'e Qing completely aroused Zhang Lan's competitive spirit, and the listing also became an obsession in Zhang Lan's heart.
In March 2011, Qiujiangnan submitted its first listing application to the CSRC, but at that time, Qiujiangnan faced many difficulties in listing, and the time may be very long at first. Because from December 2008 to June 2009, A-shares suspended the listing applications of all companies, and at least six to seven hundred companies in front of Qiujiangnan were waiting to be listed, and it was basically impossible to list by the end of 2012. For example, many fresh ingredients need to be purchased in the local market, and most of them are cash transactions, and there are no invoice certificates, which makes accurate financial audits very difficult, and the hope of listing in A-shares is becoming more and more remote.
At the end of January 2012, Qiujiangnan appeared in the list of IPO applications announced by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), which also marked the failure of Qiujiangnan's domestic listing plan. Seeing that the A-share listing was hopeless, Zhang Lan turned to seeking a listing in Hong Kong. At this time, some media broke out an international storm, pushing Zhang Lan to the cusp of public opinion. The cause of this matter is that an executive in Qiujiangnan went to the court to sue Zhang Lan, asking for assistance in her in handling the housing transfer procedures in accordance with the severance compensation agreement, but strangely enough, the court could not contact Zhang Lan at all, after verification by the police station, Zhang Lan had cancelled her account on September 17, 2012, and for a while there was an uproar, everyone speculated where Zhang Lan went, and later the media revealed that Zhang Lan's nationality is Saint Kitts and Nevis, which is also a Caribbean island country with a population of only 50,000 and black enough to account for 94%. In this way, Zhang Lan's purpose of changing the international is really not the welfare policy that everyone thinks is ready to run or yearn for abroad, so the reason for changing the international is only the last one, Zhang Lan is to bypass some regulations and restrictions, so that Qiujiangnan can be listed in Hong Kong smoothly.
Then in the middle of 2012, there was news that Qiu Jiangnan had passed the hearing of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and could be listed at any time, but the valuation of Qiu Jiangnan has not gone up, Zhang Lan decided to wait, wanting to make the valuation higher before listing, but did not expect that this completely shattered the hope of Qiu Jiangnan to list in Hong Kong stocks, and the failure of the Hong Kong listing also became the fuse for Zhang Lan to lose Qiu Jiangnan.
At the end of 2012, the state vigorously cracked down on Sangong consumption, and for a time high-end catering encountered the freezing point of the industry, and the performance of Qiujiangnan was plummeting, and it was no longer possible to go public in the short term. In December 2013, news broke that CVC Capital, an investment institution from Europe, and Qiujiangnan signed an acquisition agreement. On April 25, 2014, CVC Capital announced on its official website that it had completed the acquisition of Qiu, and the investment in which it held 10.53% of the shares was also withdrawn from the acquisition. After the transaction, Zhang Lan's stake was reduced from 89.5% to 13.8%. This has also aroused the attention of the outside world, why did Zhang Lan, as the founder of Qiujiangnan, suddenly give up most of her equity and be willing to be a small shareholder?
The outside world speculated that Zhang Lan may be forced to sell his equity because of the failure of gambling with Dinghui, and may even be out of the game from Qiujiangnan, New Fortune magazine broke the news that at that time, Dinggui invested in Qiujiangnan 200 million, accounting for 10.53% of the shares, although the proportion of shares is very small, but it buried a fatal gambling agreement, which may lead to Zhang Lan being completely out. The VAM agreement contains three lethal clauses, share repurchase clause, lead clause and liquidation priority clause. The general content is that if Qiuhui cannot be listed by the end of 2012, the first share repurchase clause will be triggered, and Dinghui has the right to require Qiujiangnan to buy back the shares held by Dinghui. What if Qiu Jiangnan does not have the money to buy back the shares held by Dinghui by then, it does not matter, this will also trigger the second retail clause, Dinghui can find the next receiver in the capital market, and Zhang Lan must also sell his shares at the same price and conditions.
In the vernacular, even if Dinghui wants to sell his equity, Zhang Lan must also sell his equity with Dinghui. Everyone may wonder why Dinghui forced Zhang Lan to also sell his equity together, which involves the third clause, Dinghui's liquidation priority, the sale of the money of Qiujiangnan shares, Dinghui can first recover twice the return on investment. In this way, the constraints of these three terms ensure that CDH Investment Jiangnan will not lose money, but the entire gambling clause is very unreasonable for founder Zhang Lan.
From the public reports, we do find that Zhang Lan really regretted taking the 200 million yuan investment of Dinghui, in an interview with global entrepreneurs, she said that the introduction of them is the biggest mistake of Qiujiangnan, meaningless, private entrepreneurs pay tuition, they did not bring us so little money, but diluted so large shares. Zhang Lan also said that she had long wanted to return the investment, but Dinghui asked for a doubling of the return, and the two sides did not negotiate.
The revelation of the new wealth stirred up thousands of waves on the Internet for a while, causing various media to forward it. However, Zhang Lan did not admit that there was a so-called gambling agreement with Dinghui, and even took Xincai to court in anger, saying that the report was a serious fact, caused serious reputation infringement to her, and demanded that the other party publicly apologize and compensate 1 million yuan.
Regardless of whether there is a gambling agreement between Zhang Lan and Dinghui, it is an indisputable fact that Zhang Lan's equity is only 13.8%. At this time, CVC Capital, which owns 82.7% of the equity of Qiujiangnan, has become the new owner of Qiujiangnan, and in the fight with Dinghui Capital, Zhang Lan lost most of the shares and control, and then fought with CVC, allowing her to completely exit the company she founded.
On April 25, 2014, CVC completed the acquisition of Qiujiangnan on its official website, at which time Zhang Lan was still the chairman of Qiujiangnan Group, but in fact had long lost control of the company. Sure enough, after a short honeymoon period, the contradictions between the two sides soon became apparent. First of all, Zhang Lan suddenly reacted that she may have been fooled by CVC, which mortgaged 13.8% of her equity to the bank without her consent, and took the mortgage loan of Qiujiangnan to buy Qiujiangnan. Everyone heard correctly, it was CVC who mortgaged Qiujiangnan to the bank, and then used the mortgaged money to return to buy Qiujiangnan.
CVC is solid and taught Zhang Lan a lesson. The story of the empty glove white wolf in the capital market is here, it should be regarded as the story of the empty control of the founder of the empty glove white wolf of the capital side, but a dramatic scene appeared, although CVC Capital took out the white wolf empty-handed, did not spend a penny to acquire Qiujiangnan, but after CVC took over Qiujiangnan, Qiujiangnan's performance fell by 50% compared with before the acquisition, CVC found that it was expensive to buy, and constantly took money to make up for the performance deficit of Qiujiangnan, they thought that they were fooled and sued in court, Zhang Lan was accused of inflating sales figures before the acquisition, and pointed out that most of the purchase money had been paid when the acquisition of Qiujiangnan, but the whereabouts of this part of the money are still unknown, and Zhang Lan was suspected of transferring the company's assets, so she applied to the court to freeze the assets in Zhang Lan's personal name. In response, Zhang Lan responded that CVC's acquisition money only received less than $200 million, and these funds were the money she sold her shares in Qiujiangnan, and she had the right to use them freely. And accused CVC of pledging 13.8% of its equity to the bank without its knowledge. At this point, the contradictions between the two sides quickly intensified, almost to the point of irreconcilability.
During the Spring Festival of 2014, Zhang Lan received a lawyer's letter and was banned from entering the Qiujiangnan office, and even the shareholders' meeting that year was not attended by each other. In response, Ms. Zhang sent a message to Qiujiangnan's executives, asking employees not to disclose any operational data, and blocked all email exchanges with CVC.
In March 2014, the Hong Kong court approved a CVC application to freeze Zhang Lan's assets in Hong Kong, including the 13.8% stake owned by Zhang Lan for the 2014 year. Due to the slump in Qiujiangnan's performance and tight cash flow, the bank asked CVC to inject another US$67.5 million into Qiujiangnan to deal with a potential debt default. At this time, CVC completely stopped working, immediately refused the bank's request to inject funds, and no longer repaid the bank loan as agreed.
During the Spring Festival in 2015, a physical conflict broke out between Zhang Lan and CVC, and the dispute between the two sides turned into a palace fight drama. Wang Xiaofei broke the news on Weibo that CVC executives and their lawyers brought more than 20 security guards to the company and placed employees on duty under house arrest. When my mother heard the news, she didn't expect to be forcibly placed under house arrest by the other party's security guards, and pushed three big heels. Because CVC refused to repay the bank loan that originally acquired Qiujiangnan on time, the bank then entrusted Hong Kong Paul Y. Consulting Co., Ltd. to fully take over all the shares pledged by CVC for liquidation, and as the founder, Zhang Lan could only watch Qiujiangnan change its course.
After joining Qiujiangnan, Paul Wah issued a statement in July 2015 that the representative appointed by CVC and Ms. Zhang Lan would no longer serve as a member of the board of directors of Qiujiangnam and would no longer handle or participate in any of Qiujiangnan's affairs. This statement also means that CVC and Zhang Lan are both defeated and both out. The dispute between the investors and the founder of Qiujiangnan came to an end in one place.
Although Zhang Lan, as the founder of Qiujiangnan, lost the company she founded in two games with capital, according to media estimates, the funds obtained by Zhang Lan through two equity transfers were about 1.8 billion yuan. This is already a very good result compared to several other enterprise founders such as Lei Shi Lighting, Lu Changjiang, Prince Milk, Zhen Kung Fu, Cai Dabiao and so on in our previous programs.