News from Changjiang Business Daily ● Shen Yourong, reporter of Changjiang Business Daily
A generation of legendary Liang Wengen retreated into the background, leaving a successor conjecture and regrets that the market value of trillions has not been completed.
Founded in 1986, in the past 37 years, starting from Lianyuan, Hunan Province, to Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, and then to Beijing, Liang Wengen has promoted Sany Group's excavators to more than 150 countries and regions around the world. He turned the dream of "casting China's world famous brand" into a reality.
A year ago, Liang Wengen resigned from Sany Heavy Industry (600031. SH), and now he is stepping down as chairman of Sany Group. Step by step, the 67-year-old went from the front of the stage to the backstage.
Genesis Liang Wengen leaves, who will take over? At present, Sany Group adopts the rotating chairman system, and the two elders Tang Xiuguo and Xiang Wenbo take turns on duty. But the market is still wondering whether Liang Wengen's only son, Liang Zaizhong will eventually take over?
On February 28, 2021, at the "March Day" of Sany Group, Liang Wengen fulfilled his promise to distribute a bonus of 33 million yuan to 33 "gold employees", and made a new promise that the market value of Sany Group reached trillions, and then rewarded each "gold employee" with 5 million yuan.
In February this year, Liang Wengen proposed a "third entrepreneurship" to target a trillion market value. At present, the market value of the Sany series is about 200 billion yuan, which is far from the trillion target.
Liang Wengen retreated, where will the giant ship of Sany go?
37 years of ups and downs in seclusion behind the scenes
After 37 years of fighting in the field of industrial manufacturing, Liang Wengen, who created a generation of legends, further retired.
On May 15 this year, the official website of Sany Group announced that due to age, Liang Wengen no longer serves as the chairman of the group, is no longer responsible for the daily operation and scheduling of the group, no longer sits on duty, and no longer participates in foreign affairs activities.
In 2022, Liang Wengen resigned as chairman of Sany Heavy Industry. A year later, he resigned as chairman of Sany Group. This may mean that Liang Wengen, who has been at the helm of Sany Group for 32 years, will leave the front line and retire into the background.
Liang Wengen's resignation has attracted high attention in the industry, due to his greater influence in the industry.
In 1983, after graduating from university, Liang Wengen was assigned to work in a state-owned machinery factory in his hometown Lianyuan. In 1986, 30-year-old Liang Wengen resigned and went to sea, and he and several like-minded friends pooled 60,000 yuan to start a business.
In 1991, Lianyuan Special Welding Materials Factory was renamed Hunan Sany Group Co., Ltd., and "three first-class" became the mission of Liang Wengen, and also laid the cultural foundation of Sany Group. At that time, Liang Wengen's dream was to plant a test field for Chinese national industry and cast China's world famous brand.
In 1993, Liang Wengen did two far-reaching events, the first thing was to strongly promote the transformation of Sany Group into the field of construction machinery, develop concrete pumps and other products, and hire well-known experts in the industry to check technology and technical research. The second thing was to move to Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province.
In 1994, Sany Heavy Industry was established, successfully developed and started to sell concrete pumps. In 2000, Sany Heavy Industry's leading products concrete pump and pump truck achieved the first market share in China. In 2003, Sany Heavy Industry successfully passed the A-share IPO and was listed on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
From Lianyuan to Changsha to Shanghai Stock Exchange, Liang Wengen's vision is getting wider and wider, and the product sales area is getting wider and wider. After Sany Heavy Industry was listed, Liang Wengen promoted its internationalization strategy and built factories and R&D centers overseas. At present, Sany Group has established four R&D and manufacturing bases in India, the United States, Germany and Brazil, and its business covers more than 150 countries and regions around the world. The company's equipment has participated in the construction of major overseas projects including the Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates, the World Cup venue in Brazil, the Russian Federation Building, and the Thai National Railway Station.
In 2011, the annual sales volume of Sany Heavy Industry excavators reached 20,614 units, with a market share of 12.3%, achieving domestic brands surpassing foreign brands for the first time.
In 2012, Sany Heavy Industry acquired the world's first concrete machinery brand Putzmeister, breaking the industry competition pattern and accelerating the process of internationalization.
In 2020, Sany Heavy Industry achieved an operating income of 100.054 billion yuan, becoming the first construction machinery enterprise in China to "break 100 billion". In 2021, Sany Group ranked among the top 500 companies.
In 2022, the market share of excavators, cranes, road machinery and other products will rank first, concrete machinery will rank first in the world, and Sany Group will become an industry leader.
At the helm of Sany Group for 32 years, Liang Wengen chose to say goodbye. However, Liang Wengen only retreated into the background, not completely left. He will continue to serve as Chairman of the Group's Supervisory Board for some time to come and will serve as the Group's General Counsel, guiding the strategy, direction and key capacity building of the Group's development.
Unfinished trillion market cap target
Liang Wengen has a dream - the market value of Sany Group is trillion yuan.
"The greatest luck in life is to discover your mission when you are in your youth." Liang Wengen once borrowed this famous saying to motivate employees, and at the same time, also motivate himself.
Liang Wengen has been setting dreams and inspiring Sany Group to move forward.
At the beginning of 1995, the night before Sany Group's first major project in Changsha, Changsha Industrial Park, was put into operation, Liang Wengen issued a white slip "lottery ticket" to 209 employees, promising to reward employees who held "lottery tickets" for every major development milestone achieved by Sany. In 1996, the white stripe "Redeem Lottery Ticket" was exchanged for a bronze medal.
In 2003, Sany Group ushered in the first milestone on the road to development. Sany Heavy Industry landed on the A-share market, and Liang Wengen fulfilled his promise for the first time and gave a bonus of 10,000 yuan to each of the 209 bronze employees. At the same time, the bronze medal was replaced with a "gold medal" made of 24K gold.
In 2007, Sany Group's sales reached 13.5 billion yuan, exceeding the 10 billion yuan mark for the first time. Liang Wengen fulfilled his promise for the second time, and the in-service gold medal employee received a bonus of 100,000 yuan. Liang Wengen also promised that when Sany Group's sales exceeded 100 billion yuan, each gold employee would be rewarded with 1 million yuan.
12 years later, in 2019, the dream came true, and Sany Group's sales exceeded the 100 billion mark for the first time. In 2020, its sales revenue reached a new high of 136.8 billion yuan.
On February 28, 2021, Liang Wengen rushed from Beijing to Hunan Province, and at the "March Day" of Sany Group, he distributed 33 million yuan bonuses to 33 employees, and paid bonuses to 4,195 employees of Sany Group who held "100 billion commemorative coupons" and 6 heroes of earthquake and disaster relief. On this day, he paid hundreds of millions of yuan in bonuses.
It was also at this exciting moment that Liang Wengen set a new dream and made a new promise - Sany Group has a market value of one trillion yuan, and then rewarded each "gold employee" with 5 million yuan.
In recent years, Liang Wengen has repeatedly mentioned a trillion market value. On February 28 this year, Liang Wengen proposed that Sany Group start its third venture and reach a trillion market value.
The goal of the third venture is refined into "333, 366" - 300 billion sales, 30,000 engineers, 3,000 workers; Construction machinery, port machinery, coal machines and mining vehicles have become the world's first, wind energy equipment, new energy commercial vehicles, petroleum equipment, battery equipment, hydrogen energy equipment, photovoltaic equipment have become China's first, industrial Internet, power battery, photovoltaic industry, building industrialization, environmental protection equipment, investment coordination has achieved a breakthrough.
Liang Wengen has retreated into the background, and Sany Group's market value is still far from the trillion target.
At present, in addition to Sany Heavy Industry, Sany Heavy Energy (688349.SH) and Sany International (00631.HK) are listed companies. As of May 19 this year, the combined market value of the three companies was 206.4 billion yuan.
Who will Liang Wengen leave to achieve the unfinished trillion market value target?
Who will be the ultimate successor
Liang Wengen retires, who will be the successor of Sany Group?
According to the announcement, after Liang Wengen stepped down, Sany Group implemented the chairman rotation system. Directors Tang Xiuguo and Xiang Wenbo serve as rotating chairmen of Sany Group. The rotation period is six months, and the duty is rotated.
At present, there are not many enterprises in China that implement the chairman rotation system. In April 2018, Huawei was the first to implement this rotation system.
Tang Xiuguo and Xiang Wenbo were both elders of the Sany Group. According to public information, Tang Xiuguo was born in 1963 and is one of the main founders of Sany Group, and has successively served as deputy general manager, director, executive deputy general manager and other important positions of Sany Group. In the development process of Sany Group, Tang Xiuguo led the establishment of the technology development department to research synthetic diamond and make low-silver silver-free materials. Xiang Wenbo was born in 1962 and joined the Sany Department in 1991, successively in charge of production, marketing business, etc., Sany Group litigation in the United States and many other major matters, Xiang Wenbo has participated.
Sany Heavy Industry's announcement shows that Liang Wengen, Tang Xiuguo and Xiang Wenbo are the concerted actors of Sany Group. Chairman rotation, in which direction will Sany Group develop?
According to the public information of Sany Group, the construction machinery industry is facing great opportunities for change, internationalization, digitalization, electrification (including electrification, hydrogen-fired hybrid) transformation will be the top priority, Sany Group's various businesses are booming, Liang Wengen hopes to focus more on the direction of "three modernizations" to ensure that the entire Sany Group, including Sany Heavy Industry, maintains its competitive advantage for a long time. After stepping down as chairman, Liang Wengen hopes to invest more energy in areas where he is better at, including seizing business opportunities and implementing long-term strategies.
Judging from the above information, the development of Sany Group is still oriented by Liang Wengen, and digitalization, electrification, and internationalization are still major development strategies.
In fact, although Sany Group adopts the chairman rotation system, in the eyes of market participants, this may be a transitional period. On the one hand, Tang Xiuguo and Xiang Wenbo are both over 60 years old, not young. On the other hand, Liang Wengen has not identified a true successor in the future.
The industrial machinery industry is cyclical, and the operation of Sany Group is also under pressure. In 2022, Sany Heavy Industry achieved an operating income of 80.822 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 24.38%, falling below the 100 billion mark; The net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company (hereinafter referred to as "net profit") was 4.273 billion yuan, down 64.49% year-on-year, and a decrease of 11.158 billion yuan compared with the net profit of 15.431 billion yuan in 2020.
It is reported that Liang Wengen has said internally that he will struggle for at least another 10 years. Perhaps, Liang Wengen believes that the foundation of Sany Group becoming an "old store for the elderly" is not stable, but judging from his successive resignations as Sany Heavy Industry and Sany Group's chairman, he will still choose to really hand over the shift.
Who will be the ultimate successor?
Public information shows that Liang Wengen's only son, Liang Zaizhong, was born in 1984. He joined Sany Group in 2006, served as a director of Sany Heavy Industry from January 2010 to November 2021, and has been a director and senior vice president of Sany Group since December 2011. At present, Leung is promoting the IPO of Tree Root Interconnection Technology Co., Ltd. ("Tree Root Interconnection"). He is the chairman and actual controller of this industrial IoT cloud platform solution provider.
Liang Wengen directly holds 56.74% of the equity of Sany Group and is the actual controller of Sany Group. In the future, the equity held by Liang Wengen will most likely be inherited by Liang Zaizhong, and Liang Zaizhong will become the actual controller of the Sany series.
The scepter of the Sany Group, if nothing else, will be held in his hand if Liang Zaizhong is willing.