At 17:30 p.m. on January 31, Paris time, as the 2024 "Happy New Year" mascot of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, the "Auspicious Dragon" lantern group, was lit up at the lantern festival site in Yu Garden, France, 60 lantern groups and more than 2,000 lanterns from Yu Garden in Shanghai bloomed in an instant, which was based on the auspicious dragons and beasts in the ancient Chinese mythological classic "Classic of Mountains and Seas".
Guo Guangchang, Chairman of Fosun International, who attended the event, quickly posted a Weibo post: "In the garden, I saw many local residents with their whole families coming to enjoy the lantern group and taste the Nanxiang xiaolongbao from Yu Garden, and the smiles on their faces gave me great encouragement, Fosun's mission is to strive for the health, happiness and prosperity of one billion family customers around the world!"
On the 21st, when the lantern festival in Shanghai Yuyuan Garden was lit up, Guo Guangchang also had a lot of feelings, and posted on Weibo that "the lights of Yuyuan Garden have lit up new dreams", "Fosun's dream will not stop, people's yearning for a better life is the driving force for us to keep moving forward, not afraid of long roads, only afraid of short ambitions".
Fosun is one of the earliest and furthest private enterprises in China's globalization. Over the past three years, the slow economic recovery and geopolitical headwinds of globalization have put Chinese companies, including Fosun, under considerable pressure.
As Guo Guangchang said, "the most difficult period has passed", and after successfully overcoming the debt wall, Fosun continued to focus on the main business of household consumption, and there is more and more good news. Since the second half of last year, Fosun's interim report has achieved growth, with a number of resorts and resorts opening, and "Fosun has crossed ten thousand mountains" has become the focus of public opinion.
This time, the mythical beasts of the Yuyuan Lantern Festival flew from Shanghai to Paris, thousands of miles away, showing that Guo Guangchang and Fosun's globalization path has also returned to the normal track. Over the past year, Fosun has continued to focus on the industry, promoted its innovation and globalization strategy, and its business is also on the way to full recovery.
The era of globalization 4.0
Starting with the listing of Fosun International in Hong Kong in 2007, Fosun has continued to explore the path of globalization of Chinese enterprises. From the initial "China Power Grafting Global Resources" to today's "Global Organization + Local Operation", Fosun has carried out in-depth industrial layout in 35 countries and regions around the world, with 100,000 employees worldwide and overseas revenue accounting for more than 45% of total revenue.
France is a key region for Fosun's globalization. In 2010, Fosun made its first strategic stake in Club Med, and in the same year, it opened its first ice and snow resort in Yabuli, China. Since then, with the support of Fosun's operation, Club Med's localization development in China has been accelerating, and in 2018 and 2023, based on the travel habits of Chinese urban people, it has successively launched two new product lines, "Mediterranean Neighborhood" and "Mediterranean Ark of the Day", injecting new vitality into China's leisure and vacation industry.
In the 14 years since entering the French market, Fosun has become one of the largest Chinese private enterprises investing in France, with more than 10,000 employees in France, including Club Med, Lanvin, the oldest French haute couture fashion brand, St. Hubert, a 113-year-old leader in the French health food industry, PAREF Asset Management Platform, and French pharmaceutical distribution companies Tridem Parma, Djula, Cenexi, etc.
In Fosun's eyes, globalization is not only a "two-way trip" between the world and China, but also actively encourages Fosun's overseas enterprises to actively expand locally and overseas. For example, Fosun Portugal Insurance has not only steadily expanded its business scale in Portugal, but also continued to grow its international business premiums and further improved its business in Latin America, while Tridem Parma has actively expanded its pharmaceutical distribution network in Africa, covering nearly 90% of the African region.
Today, with the Yuyuan Lantern Festival "going to sea" in Paris, Guo Guangchang is promoting Fosun's globalization into the 4.0 era: after China rolls out its competitiveness, it will carry out sales and operations around the world, and create good products to better serve the world's billion family customers.
At the 2023 Shanghai Zhejiang Entrepreneurs Forum Annual Meeting on January 13, Guo Guangchang called on Zhejiang businessmen to go overseas more. He believes that the domestic roll is too strong, "it is a bad thing and a good thing": it has a strong competitiveness in the country, and it can be eaten all over the world.
"Globalization, of course, needs a process, and everyone needs to be prepared. However, Zhejiang businessmen are not afraid of hardship, and in the process of global learning, I believe that they will be able to do it soon. ”
In the process of Fosun's globalization, medicine, health and tourism culture are the key areas. In terms of medicine, Fosun Pharma has set up R&D centers in many places around the world, and Henlius' self-developed high-quality Chinese opera drugs have been approved for marketing in China, the European Union and the United States at the same time, and Intuitive Fosun has realized the localized production of the da Vinci surgical robot in Zhangjiang, Shanghai, to better benefit domestic patients.
In the field of cultural tourism, Club Med Kiroro Grand Resort in Hokkaido, a subsidiary of Fosun Tourism, was officially opened at the end of December, further establishing Club Med's leading position in the skiing field in Hokkaido and even in the world.
"Huge Space for Innovation and Commerce"
At the same frequency as the "globalization" strategy, Fosun's other core strategy "innovation-driven" is also continuing to advance. Since the beginning of the business, Fosun has relied on hepatitis B PCR reagents to gain a foothold, and innovation has been integrated into Fosun's corporate DNA, and Fosun has continued to invest in innovation and increased year by year, reaching RMB 4.2 billion in the first half of 2023 alone.
In recent years, Fosun's innovation strategy has continued to enter the harvest period, for example, Henlius' self-developed bio-innovative drug H drug Hansizhuang, which has been approved for the treatment of three indications in China, and as the world's first anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody approved for the first-line treatment of extensive-stage small cell lung cancer, it was shipped to Indonesia on January 25, entering the international market for the first time and benefiting more patients around the world. Fosun Kite's first CAR-T cell therapy product in China, Yikaida, has also been conditionally approved for second-line indications.
Biomedicine is an industry that Fosun started, and after 31 years, Guo Guangchang still sees the opportunities inside. At the Zhejiang Entrepreneurs Forum, Guo Guangchang proposed that the combination of AI and biomedicine will bring a revolutionary panorama, which has huge space for innovation and business, and is also one of the priorities of Fosun's future development.
In the domestic and overseas markets, Fosun has created more good products and services, created and enhanced business value by promoting technology, creativity and business model innovation, and polished the strings of "pearls" in Fosun's industrial ecosystem more and more beautifully.
"Continuing to Uphold the Entrepreneurial Spirit"
In the past two years, it is needless to say that domestic entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs have been under great pressure, and Guo Guangchang and Fosun have also worked hard.
In 2022, Fosun fell into the rumor of a "debt crisis" because of Moody's downgrade, and it was on the cusp of public opinion for a while. At the performance meeting in early April last year, Guo Guangchang lamented that Fosun encountered a "perfect storm" this year.
Guo Guangchang, who graduated from the Department of Philosophy of Fudan University, has a deep understanding of the transformation of "crisis and opportunity". He did not choose to "lie flat", but led Fosun to take advantage of the situation to make strategic adjustments, resolutely withdraw from non-core tracks such as steel, and continue to increase the weight in the core business of household consumption while "slimming down and gaining muscle", focusing on high-growth tracks.
At the end of August 2023, Fosun International's interim results were stable. Total revenue increased by 10.9% year-on-year to RMB97.06 billion, and industrial operating profit increased by 66% year-on-year to RMB3.37 billion. The four core subsidiaries of Yuyuan Garden, Fosun Pharma, Fosun Portugal Insurance and Fosun Tourism all showed positive growth.
At the same time, Fosun continued to optimize its capital and asset structure, and actively explored financing channels, and the debt crisis that public opinion was most concerned about was successfully resolved. As of the end of the reporting period, the Group's cash bank balance reached RMB114.68 billion, and the leverage ratio accelerated to 51.8%, the lowest since 2018, and the international rating agency Standard & Poor's also upgraded its rating outlook to stable.
Recently, Bloomberg Intelligence released an analyst report pointing out that Fosun's active handling of non-core businesses has achieved remarkable results, and it is expected that U.S. Treasury bonds may peak, and Fosun's recent U.S. dollar bond yields are more attractive. In the future, Chinese companies, including Fosun, will resume overseas bond issuance, which may usher in a turnaround.
With the confidence of performance growth and financial stability, at the interim results meeting, Guo Guangchang publicly stated, "Now we should be braver, more resolute, and full of confidence in the future."
In the second half of the year, Nanjing Xianlin Mediterranean Ark Nanjing Xianlin Resort, Alpine Resort, and Hokkaido Club Med Kiroro Grand Resort have opened successively, and Fosun's strategy of focusing on family consumption has become clearer.
Guo Guangchang has always believed that Fosun has relied on nothing more than the entrepreneurial spirit of continuous learning and evolution since its establishment. In Yuyuan's Weibo account, he once again mentioned that he should continue to adhere to the "entrepreneurial spirit", adhere to Fosun's dream, and continue to improve its business.
"In the 31 years since its founding, Fosun has always pursued the health, happiness and prosperity of one billion families around the world. It will not be easy to realize such a dream, but we will definitely persist in doing it and move forward firmly. Guo Guangchang said.
As a company started by college students, Fosun has been in business for 31 years this year, and its founder, Guo Guangchang, is 57 years old this year. Through rapids and rapids, Fosun continued to sail forward.
Seeing the "Auspicious Dragon" lantern group lit up in Paris, Guo Guangchang said, "As a global company, half of Fosun's revenue comes from overseas, and the holding of the lantern festival is the epitome of our globalization strategy. In the future, we will continue to strengthen global cooperation and communication, be a bridge and link, and work together for a better life for the world, and the world will become a better place. (ENDS)
Source: China Financial Information Center Lujiazui Financial Network
Editor: Fang Zizhao
Editor-in-charge: Gu Shuxu