Author: Guo Ruyi
来源：商业人物（ID：biz-leaders）
On Friday, some of Vanke's domestic and foreign debts hit a record low, and the life of this leading real estate company is really not peaceful.
Everyone is speculating about Vanke's financial situation, and it is difficult to know how far it is from the bottom line of safety.
While Vanke is trying to meet the turmoil in the market, there is a special person who is staying out of the way, and that is Wang Shi, honorary chairman of the board of directors of Vanke.
Although he has a title, Wang Shi's connection with Vanke has weakened, and he should no longer have to worry about the company's affairs. Now the one who leads the team to break through has long been replaced by his fan brother Yu Liang. Wang Shi seemed to have enough time to do what he wanted to do.
Recently, Wang Shi drove a rowing boat on the Qinhuai River. Chic and at ease. In addition to playing rowing, judging from the Weibo posts from time to time, his attention has long been out of the real estate business - either to share a low-carbon and environmentally friendly life concept, or to provide some advice to young people, to act as a life coach, and so on. A month ago, Wang Shi and his wife Tian Pujun also had an unforgettable wedding anniversary, Tian Pujun gave him a customized version of the car, and shared the intimate interaction between the two on Weibo.
If it weren't for Vanke's frequent "warnings" this year, this quiet time would not have been broken.
Wang Shi retired from Vanke in 2017, and in addition to enjoying life, he has not been idle in his career. Starting a company again, engaging in private equity funds, etc., his newly founded company once had news of going public. No matter how much income he can get from other channels, according to Wang Shi's previous interview, he still receives a pension from Vanke according to the previous salary standard, adding up to more than 10 million yuan a year. He said the money was enough for his living expenses.
The good deeds turned out this interview video, on the one hand, it is easy to have a pension of tens of millions, and on the other hand, it is Vanke that is under financial pressure, is this money still received in full by Wang Shi?
It stands to reason that Wang Shi's retirement treatment back then was not excessive. 2017 was the peak period of the real estate industry, and Vanke was not short of money, and Yu Liang's annual salary before tax (including fixed salary and annual bonus) at that time exceeded 10 million yuan. And get more is the "economic profit bonus", which is a performance incentive standard set by Vanke since 2010, and Yu Liang's after-tax economic profit award in 2017 is as high as 15 million. The annual income of other board executives is also huge. For Wang Shi, who had just experienced the "Baowan Dispute", he chose to retire at that time, which was quite a bit of a concession to protect himself. In this case, it seems understandable that Vanke has given the old chairman a decent retirement standard.
The problem was that things changed later.
Since February this year, Vanke's financial situation has become the focus of attention in the industry. The industry is sluggish, and the good days of real estate companies are gone, starting with high-leverage private real estate companies with frequent thunderstorms, and then spreading to leading mixed-ownership real estate companies like Vanke. As of now, Vanke still maintains its credit in the open market, but it is inevitably affected by the over-falling market.
In terms of sales, Vanke has declined continuously in the past three years, from more than 600 billion yuan in 2021 to more than 370 billion yuan last year. The same is true for net profit, which was 12.1 billion last year, a year-on-year decrease of 46%. Almost cut in half. On the same day that Tian Pujun posted on Weibo to celebrate her wedding anniversary, Vanke announced its sales results for the first two months of this year, in which the sales area fell by 38% year-on-year, and the sales amount fell by 43% year-on-year. The poor performance has also dragged down the stock price, and some statistics say that Vanke A has hit a new low in more than eight years.
None of this is good news.
In terms of debt repayment, as of the end of last year, Vanke's interest-bearing liabilities due within a year exceeded 60 billion, and the company's monetary funds on the books were 100 billion. It seems that there is no problem in covering short-term debt, but not long ago, Zhu Jiusheng, president of Vanke, said that excluding pre-sale regulatory funds and other restricted funds, the money that Vanke can use is still very stressful.
It seems that not only does Wanda have to rely on selling assets to survive, but the urgency of Vanke's revitalization of assets and cashing out is not low.
The company's life is relatively tight, and Vanke's executives have also consciously made "sacrifices". From this month onwards, the monthly salaries of Yu Liang, Zhu Jiusheng and the chairman of the board of supervisors will be reduced to 10,000 yuan before tax. Eight full-time directors, supervisors and senior executives also voluntarily gave up their bonuses for 2023. Not only that, but the "economic profit bonus" system, which has been in place for more than a decade, was abolished last year. According to the new remuneration mechanism, the remuneration of Yu Liang and Zhu Jiusheng will be based on the reference net profit index, and then add the stock price as a coefficient. If Vanke's stock price continues to fall endlessly, Yu Liang's revenue this year may shrink again.
The interests of shareholders also had to make concessions. Due to the decline in performance and the consideration of retaining more bullets to deal with the crisis, Vanke broke the record of 31 consecutive years of dividends and decided to cancel the dividend in 2023. In Vanke's words, it was a "difficult decision". Everyone has to cut back on food and clothing and get through together.
As for whether Wang Shi has also cut back on food and clothing, it is not clear. Vanke has not publicly responded to the matter of "tens of millions of pensions", and it has not mentioned half of it in its financial report. Looking at Vanke's 2023 annual report, in a salary table containing 17 directors, supervisors and senior executives, Yu Liang has the highest pre-tax salary, only 1.27 million. There are also five directors and supervisors who do not actually serve in the company, and the remuneration is 0. Wang Shi's remuneration is unknown, and another table in the annual report may be able to see one or two - that is the five anonymous people with the highest cash salary in 2023, the highest received 6.96 million, and the five people received a total of more than 23 million. I don't know if Wang Shi is in it.
From the perspective of sharing honor and disgrace, it is normal if Wang Shi's 10 million pension shrinks a little.
In the real estate industry, Vanke has always been known as a good student, with a relatively stable financial strategy and a relatively high credit rating. The same is the decline in revenue and profits, compared with some thunderstorm real estate companies, Vanke's fundamentals should be better, for example, as of the end of last year, it has been positive operating cash flow for 15 consecutive years. On the bank financing side, this is the financing channel that Vanke has relied on for a long time, and it is said to be a normal state. For example, in March, Vanke successfully secured a loan of 1.4 billion yuan from Industrial Bank.
If there is no strong credit, the bank's support will not be so happy.
To put it vulgarly, at this moment, Wang Shi, who is far away from Vanke's business, is still closely bound to the company's vital interests. After all, Vanke is doing well, and his pension is more secure. Of course, this is probably just my narrow guess, Vanke's family is big, and it is not a problem to pay a pension of 10 million, but public opinion is leisurely, only when the performance really turns over, so spending money will be more confident. Wang Shi, who easily gets money, doesn't have so much criticism.
*Title image | Visual China