Raise tens of thousands of employees into customers, and dummies get paid? The performance of well-known wine companies has skyrocketed, and the secret is exposed!

Phoenix.com Finance

2024-05-12 17:41Posted on the official account of Beijing Phoenix Finance

Produced by Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm".

Author丨Li Qiuhan Editor丨Wen Hua

Breaking news complaint email: [email protected]

Wang Yang is now relying on a breath of air to speak. Throughout April, he came to No. 500 Hongqiao Road, Shanghai on time early in the morning, and his only purpose was to recover his "money" from Shanghai Guijiu - 10 million.

Shanghai Guijiu, which is at the center of the storm, has long since broken its capital chain. But unlike the previous "company thunderstorm", Wang Yang is not a customer, nor a supplier, but the general manager in charge of sales business in a central province of Shanghai Guijiu, since joining the company for more than two years, he has invested almost all the savings in his family, and also mortgaged his own and his younger brother's two houses, just to give the company "advance" to obtain higher returns.

Like Wang Yang, there are more than 30 sales representatives of Shanghai Guijiu who came from all provinces across the country who want to get back the "advance payment" and salary from the company. The amount of money they claim to be "owed wages" can range from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions. Wang Yang belongs to the latter group and is one of the people who are "owed" the most.

This kind of "employee advance" behavior may have become the reason why Shanghai Guijiu's revenue has skyrocketed by 10 times in the four years since its establishment. Even in the 2023 annual report just released on April 26, Shanghai Guijiu still surpassed many wine merchants despite the negative news, achieving both revenue and net profit growth.

According to the data disclosed in the annual report, the revenue in 2023 will be 1.629 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 49.3%, and the net profit will be 87.07 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 133%. Four days after the report, the stock price rose 4.7%.

After being verified by many people and related materials, it was found that Shanghai Guijiu is different from traditional wine merchants, Shanghai Guijiu actually joins fewer distributors, and most of the channel merchants are essentially employees recruited through in vitro companies. These employees play a key role in the performance of Shanghai Guijiu, and they are both "distributors" and consumers of Shanghai Guijiu. They have become the actual buyers of the risk of unsalable products in Shanghai.

When the plates of Shanghai Guijiu could not function, they also became the last "pick-up heroes". The traders of Shanghai Guijiu are Han Hongwei and Han Xiao of Haiyin Wealth, the third largest wealth company controlled by Han Hongwei, which exploded in December last year, or affected 46,000 investors and 60 billion yuan of funds could not be redeemed. Shanghai Guijiu once urgently put aside the relationship, saying that "up to now, it has only liquor sales business with Haiyin Holdings and its subsidiaries, with a transaction amount of 48,800 yuan." However, in the 2024 Q1 annual report, it is linked to Hywin Wealth, explaining that "due to the impact of the related party Hywin Wealth incident, the company has experienced temporary liquidity pressure due to the centralized repayment of the loans of the controlling shareholder".

The Han family and his son want to try their best to rescue Shanghai Guijiu and repair the social impact. Han Xiao, who served as the chairman, also served as the general manager, and walked to the front of the stage, releasing all kinds of positive signals, but in fact, the problems faced by Shanghai Guijiu are far from simple financial breaks, self-repair, and then rebuilding the narrative system for the future. There are more questions behind it that may touch the legal red line, such as whether the authenticity of the data in the company's books can stand the test? If the company makes a profit every year, why does it end up with billions of dollars in money, and where does it go?

01Cultivate tens of thousands of employees into customers

In 2019, when the liquor pattern was solidified and the competition was fierce, Han Hongwei entered the liquor market. But soon, Shanghai Guijiu, whose revenue was less than 100 million in 2020, will approach 1.1 billion in 2022, and the revenue growth rate in 2021 will be as high as 656%.

Why Shanghai Guijiu can quickly fight its way out in a "sea of blood" was once a mystery in the liquor market. After contacting a number of old employees, Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" found that the soaring performance of Shanghai Guijiu is inseparable from the new gameplay created by Han Hongwei - getting rid of the traditional dealer model, recruiting employees in the way, and then developing into customers in disguise.

Zhao Yu, a veteran employee, recalled that in 2019, Han Hongwei had just acquired the winery and recruited employees with high salaries but delayed performance, so he launched a strategy, a sales manager paid 5,000 yuan, he could get 5,000 yuan worth of wine from the company, and he could also get a salary of 4,500 yuan plus a reward of 1,000 yuan, and the company also paid the social security provident fund.

This deformed model has attracted a large number of people to join the direct sales line of Shanghai Guijiu, and Zhao Yu is one of them. The company quickly assembled a large number of personnel, and in 2019 his provincial branch had about 100 people. This number of staff has climbed to 1,000 by 2021.

Liu Yongqiang, the general manager from another province, believes that this is obviously losing money for Shanghai Guijiu, this model has lasted for a few months, in fact, in order to balance the cost, the company has reduced the amount and proportion of the return, and also launched the entry standard at that time in 2021, according to the monthly assessment target of 40% with a single entry, a city total team with a monthly assessment target of 300,000, then the city general manager with a single entry, you have to pay 120,000 first. The monthly assessment of the city branch is 100,000 yuan, that is, you have to bring a single 40,000 yuan to join the company.

This means that the wages of employees are equivalent to their own advances in advance, and employees have become distributors in disguise, and most of them have a large amount of wine in their hands.

Although the company doesn't make money, it seems like a "sure-the-money" business for employees. Everywhere is frantically expanding the team, because the more people, the more payments, and the higher the amount of returns.

According to a number of salary information provided by them, although the company's remuneration for employees is carefully divided, mainly including salary + commission + quarterly incentives, etc., in the eyes of many respondents, they use the words "subsidy" and "rebate" to express it, and there is an "invisible" simple standard to measure the relationship between their income and payment.

Caption: The schematic diagram of the employee income plan of the Shanghai Guijiu direct sales line in September 2023 provided by the interviewee, "Shiju" refers to Shanghai Shiju Trading Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Shanghai Guijiu, which has now been renamed Shanghai Tianqing Guijiu Trading Co., Ltd

According to the schematic diagram made by a provincial branch of Shanghai Guijiu Direct Sales Line according to the headquarters plan obtained by Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm", the company will give a team of detailed payment and income plans. For example, for a performance of 1 million, if it is a team of 3 city total + 10 sub-total + 50 contracting system (referring to part-time employees) to make payments, then the team can get 852,000 yuan by relying on "employee income" and "rebates". At the same time, they can also get a certain value of wine. This approach helps the team quickly understand and digest the complex compensation structure on the surface.

In the branch managed by Liu Yongqiang, the income of the entire team is basically more than 80% of the payment amount, in addition, after the payment, you can get the corresponding amount of wine and reward wine, even if the wine is sold at a discount of one or two, you can also make money.

It is normal for the middle and senior managers of Shanghai Guijiu to earn 20,000 or 30,000 yuan a month, and as the provincial general manager, Liu Yongqiang can earn up to 100,000 yuan a month. As far as he knows, there are provinces that can have a total income of 300,000 yuan a month.

Caption: The organizational structure of the direct sales line of Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" is based on the company's PPT data and the information provided by the interviewees

Shanghai Guijiu has also set up layers of ranks to encourage employees to push up the amount of payment. For example, starting from 2022, the higher the amount of entry for employees, the higher the rank, the higher the basic salary and commission. Liu Yongqiang, for example, paid 100,000 yuan, and joined the city general manager, and paid 400,000 yuan, and joined the assistant general manager of the provincial company. Each provincial company has a corresponding person in charge of recruitment, who specializes in recruiting people with economic strength and can continue to make payments.

In 2023, the company will launch a store policy for employees - encouraging "employees" to open Shanghai Guijiu stores and give higher support, but at the same time, the requirements for the payment amount are also higher, a store needs to make a payment for the first time and pick up 400,000 yuan, and it also needs to make an annual payment and pick up 3 million yuan.

This policy directly involved the heads of the provinces and branches in the inexhaustible game of "making money". Li Gang, who will become the assistant general manager of the provincial company with 400,000 orders in 2023, is one of the positive responders. As soon as the policy came out, he settled an account. Open a store, first of all, the performance can be the same as before, after the payment and wine, there can be about 83% cash return + wine, and there are two additional discounts, one is a store with a decoration subsidy of 500,000 yuan, and the other is that there will be 5% of the payment amount as a rent subsidy every month, "not only does the store have no cost, but also on the basis of the previous rebate of 83%, there are 5 more points."

He planned to open 8 stores, first open 1 to test the water, invest 700,000 yuan in decoration, and make a total of 3 million payments, but all the store decoration subsidies and rent subsidies promised by the company, as well as wine rebates, were not in place.

Wang Yang's situation is even worse. He partnered with his relatives to open 2 stores, and also opened 6 stores with customers and friends, and he paid 4 million yuan in advance for the decoration of 8 stores, and also called 6 million yuan to Shanghai Guijiu as the annual liquor payment for the two stores he opened.

This directly raised the scale of Wang Yang's debt, for which he was burdened with tens of millions of debts, with interest as high as 300,000 yuan per month.

02 Many "employees" are fake

It is difficult for the outside world to imagine what kind of atmosphere such a marketing model will form in the company. But soon, another business fraud model was born internally - local teams used fake identities to swipe their money and grab higher returns.

In the report materials provided by the employee, under the surveillance camera, an employee dressed in black, holding a pen in his hand, is signing labor contracts one by one, from signing on behalf of him to pressing his fingerprints on his behalf.

Caption: Screenshot of some materials reported by a provincial branch of Shanghai Guijiu Direct Sales Line to fake employees

"It's part of fake employees. The team will buy a large number of ID cards from the village in batches, disguise themselves as 'new employees', and return them to apply for social security and sign labor contracts. Liu Yongqiang told Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" that this is not easy to find, and it needs to meet the two conditions of "not paying social security" and "under the age of 60", if they can't find it, they will use the identity information of their relatives.

They also have to disguise daily attendance for these non-existent employees, and there are internal employees who are responsible for clocking in and out for "them" in DingTalk. Even the resignation link is envisaged that in order to ensure the consistency of handwriting, the same person will sign the resignation application as early as the time of signing the labor contract.

In short, from applying for an email, receiving an offer, signing a labor contract, to daily DingTalk punching and signing a resignation application, creating "fake employees" in Shanghai Guijiu direct sales line has formed a complete chain.

This kind of behavior is very popular among the various branches of the Shanghai Guijiu direct sales line. Liu Yongqiang revealed that many teams, "maybe below the rank of deputy general manager, are dummies, and the so-called twenty or thirty employees in the department do not exist."

Even higher-level managers can fool around. Li Gang, from a southern province, when the vice president of the group pulled him to join the company in 2023, the other party introduced him to him in person this method of fraudulent payment, Li Gang's team has more than 10 people, in fact, many of them are named through the identity information of relatives and friends, and he is the only one who really does business.

At least 4 of the 7 sales staff recently contacted by Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" admitted to leading this kind of fraud.

The reason for such a spectacle is related to the model of Shanghai Guijiu direct sales line relying on the performance of people and then cashing back.

In the composition of Shanghai Guijiu repayment, there is basic salary + commission + bonus + wine, of which the basic salary + commission is the big one, the more people, the more money will be returned.

Caption: Part of the organizational structure in the PPT of Shanghai Guijiu Company introduction provided by the interviewee

Zhao Yu gave a detailed explanation: If the general manager of a city company pays 300,000 yuan and takes 300,000 yuan worth of wine, the normal salary plus commission is only more than 40,000 yuan, which is equivalent to spending 250,000 yuan to buy the wine with a 20% discount. However, if the general manager of the three branches adds up to 300,000 yuan, which is completed by more than 10 sales under his hands, then the returned salary + commission + recommended newcomer award, monthly award, etc., can return more than 200,000 yuan in cash, which is equivalent to buying wine worth more than 300,000 yuan with tens of thousands of yuan, taking the wine at 1% discount, and then selling it at a price of 2% or 3% off, so that there will be room to make money.

"Otherwise, no one will play with them," Mr. Zhao said.

03 Hidden capital channels

The gameplay of Shanghai Guijiu has broken through the conventional cognition of many people. In order to ensure the compliance of the payment method, Shanghai Guijiu established a shell company with the help of employees before the confirmation of income and costs, as a hidden capital channel.

A number of interviewees said that from the beginning of the entry of the order, employees began to use third-party companies to pay Shanghai Guijiu. Many employees borrowed the information of relatives and friends to register the company, and then bought wine in this name and paid Shanghai Guijiu.

According to the payment records presented by the employees, Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" collected 4 payment companies.

Most of these companies are established in 2022 and 2023, the number of people shown in the company's social security information is 0, the paid-in capital is 0, and the business scope is some to do wholesale business, and some are engaged in wine and beverage business.

Shanghai Guijiu rarely discloses the specific names of the top five customers, but in the reply letter to Shanghai Guijiu, the top ten customers are disclosed according to the data of the 2021 semi-annual report. Among them, three of the top five customers are related parties of the company, Jinhua Liquor, Guijiu Liquor and Guizhou Guijiu are all affiliated enterprises, and the three together contribute 21% of Shanghai Guijiu's revenue.

It's hard to say that Shanghai Guijiu has no idea about this. According to Liu Yongqiang, the group buying department in charge of sales management of Shanghai Guijiu will regularly review the payment records and inquire about the payment company information according to the names and ID numbers of employees recorded in the internal system. However, the specific punishment is not severe, for example, if the legal person or shareholder of the registered company is found to have the same name as the employee, part of the reward will be deducted, and after the investigation is strict, it will also refund and return the product, and there is no penalty for the employee.

Shanghai Guijiu's financial system is too complex. Not only are most of the customers owned by insiders, but in order to control costs, Shanghai Guijiu has also set up a large number of external companies to improve the profitability of Shanghai Guijiu.

Internally, Shanghai Guijiu will default to two terms "in vivo" and "in vitro", the former refers to companies that are directly related to Shanghai Guijiu in terms of equity, and the latter is the opposite. Most of the contracts that require the recognition of alcohol revenue are internal companies. For contracts that need to confirm expenditures and suspected risks, most of the contracting entities are in vitro companies.

Caption: The distributor contract signed between a registered third-party company and a subsidiary of Shanghai Guijiu provided by the respondent

Caption: Payment receipt provided by the interviewee

For example, the direct sales line team responsible for marketing, most of the labor contract signing companies, have nothing to do with Shanghai Guijiu. Even if the position of the provincial sales person has been achieved, the labor contracts signed by Liu Yongqiang, Zhao Gang, and Wang Yang include Shanghai Xunjiang Trading Co., Ltd., Shanghai Penglai Trading Co., Ltd., etc., and the main body of the company that signed the contract will change from time to time to let them sign again. These companies are in vitro companies. According to Aiqicha, Shanghai Penglai Trading Co., Ltd. is an enterprise engaged in the wholesale industry, but the number of people who pay social security is 0.

Caption: Information on signed employment contracts provided by the respondents

In the recent regulatory inquiry of Shanghai Guijiu by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shanghai Xunjiang Trading Co., Ltd. was mentioned. In the inquiry, it was mentioned that Shanghai Guijiu recommended the headhunting company to the company's employees, and signed labor contracts with Shanghai Xunjiang Trading Co., Ltd., Shanghai Shiju Trading Co., Ltd., Kao Liquor Co., Ltd., Henan Shen'an Liquor Co., Ltd., Shanghai Yongdian Human Resources Service Co., Ltd., etc., and the company did not disclose the above-mentioned companies as related parties, and increased its sales and net profit through its hoarding of goods.

In the reply, Shanghai Guijiu admitted that the original legal person of Shanghai Xunjiang Trading Co., Ltd. was Wang Jun, who had worked in the related party Guijiu Liquor Industry, but said that Wang Jun was not an affiliated natural person of the company, and Shanghai Xunjiang had no relationship with the company, and only had millions of business transactions in 2021 and 2022.

Not only sales, but also marketing, HR, administration and other departments of the employees of the labor contract is also signed outside the body.

Lu Qiu, an employee who does marketing business, told Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" that when she joined the company in 2022, HR told her that in order to control labor costs, about 90% of listed companies signed labor contracts with third-party companies. She counted the labor contracts signed by her colleagues, and the subjects signed were: Shanghai Dandian Human Resources Management Co., Ltd., Shanghai Dantan Human Resources Co., Ltd., Shanghai Xunhe Human Resources Management Company, etc.

Not only did it avoid costs in signing labor contracts, but Shanghai Guijiu also carried out financial isolation in its actual operation.

For example, when marketing and signing contracts with suppliers, most of them use third-party companies. Lu Qiu revealed that in the contracts she has contacted, the expenditure amount exceeds 500,000 yuan, and it will be split, and the main body of the contracted company is divided into internal and external parts.

In the advertising contracts she handled before, only about 700,000 of the 2 million miles were signed by Shanghai Guijiu Co., Ltd., and 1.3 million were signed by Shanghai Shida Industrial Co., Ltd. Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" found that Tao Lei and Jin Xiarong, shareholders of Shanghai Shida Industrial Co., Ltd., both served as supervisors or executive directors under Han Xiao Holding Company or the Wuniu Fund managed by Han Xiao.

"There are thousands of entities in our company, and insiders basically know that the subject of the contract is different every time," Mr. Lu said.

Although most of the costs are shared by the company in vitro, the money paid by the employees to buy alcohol is counted in the "inside" company. According to the performance payment records provided by the employees, the collection account is Shanghai Guijiu and its subsidiaries. There are a number of payment receipts, and the receiving companies are Shanghai Tianqing Guijiu Trading Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Rock Liquor Co., Ltd., both of which are subsidiaries of Shanghai Guijiu.

This mode of operation means that revenue recognition is within the system of listed companies, and more costs are placed outside the body, ensuring the "bright" performance of listed companies.

04 The dilemma of Han's father and son is difficult to solve

The performance improvement figures, regardless of costs, all point to the stock price of listed companies. Under a series of operations, Han's father and son also got what they wanted. Shanghai Guijiu (the name of A shares is still Rock Shares), a "demon stock" known for changing its name, has indeed experienced a soaring stock price.

At the end of 2018, before the liquor business, the share price of Shanghai Guijiu was about 5 yuan per share, which rose slightly in 2019, rising to a maximum of 13 yuan per share in 2020 and soaring to 42 yuan per share in 2021.

Judging from the financial report data, the growth is also impressive. From 2020 to 2023, the performance will jump four times in a row, from 79 million to 1.629 billion in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 113%, and net profit will also increase from 8 million in 2020 to 87 million in 2023.

But in December 2023, Haiyin's wealth exploded, and the capital chain of Han's father and son has been broken.

Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" once reported "Falsely overraising more than 10 billion in the name of Evergrande? As a third-party wealth management company, it should be an independent intermediary financial institution, but there is an intricate connection between Hywin Wealth and its distribution of non-standard fixed income products, and it is suspected that there is a phenomenon of false fundraising.

It is also from this quarter that Shanghai Guijiu's performance has plummeted, with rare losses in Q4 of 2023 and Q1 of 2024, and its operating income in Q1 this year has shrunk by 71%.

The group companies under the management of Han's father and son, whether it is Haiyin Fortune or Shanghai Guijiu, all have similar backgrounds. Even if this company sells alcohol for a living, Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" found that its essence is still like a financial company.

Among the many employees contacted by Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm", many of them were previously engaged in the financial and insurance industries.

More intuitively, Xu Yong, vice president of Shanghai Guijiu Co., Ltd. and former head of the direct sales line, was previously engaged in the insurance industry and was the general manager of Qianhai Life Insurance Shanghai Company. After Xu Yong's resignation in 2022, Ding Yin took over and was responsible for the direct sales line business. Ding Yin, who was previously engaged in the P2P industry, worked for e-rent, and was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison in 2017 on suspicion of illegally absorbing public deposits, according to the judgment document network.

The Group's DNA is also reflected in the business. At least two people familiar with the situation at the core told Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" that the gameplay of Han's father and son is a left-handed and right-handed capital game, and there is frequent capital flow between Haiyin Wealth, Wuniu Fund, and Shanghai Guijiu.

Before the thunderstorm of Haiyin's wealth and the emergency of Shanghai Guijiu's capital chain, Han Hongwei was generous.

Liu Yongqiang was very impressed by the fact that when he first joined the company in 2019, in the conference room of Lujiazui Haiyin Building, Han Hongwei said that one would cost 8,000 yuan in a meeting.

Caption: An experience center in Shanghai Guijiu

In his impression, Han Hongwei has a sense of pride in spending money on expensive products. Including the opening of Shanghai Guijiu stores and experience centers all over the country, a single sofa costs 10,000 yuan, and an experience center costs three or four million yuan for decoration alone, "showing a very wealthy appearance".

According to a civil ruling, on February 9, 2023, more than half a year before the explosion of Hywin Wealth, Han Hongwei purchased a luxury house in Pudong New Area, Shanghai, with a transfer price of RMB 125 million.

Now, the capital of the Han father and son is unsustainable, and tens of thousands of investors and his employees are caught in the capital vortex. The negativity-ridden Han father and son are still trying to maintain a semblance of order to the outside world, but how far they can go may need to be put a question mark.

(At the request of the interviewee, the names of the employees in this article have been changed.) ）

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