Suning shock: The richest man Zhang Jindong returned, and Zhang Gongzi lost Inter

Refer to Ortho Quotient

2024-05-24 09:21Posted on Beijing Zhengshang Reference Official Account

Zhang Jindong, the founder of Suning and the former richest man in Jiangsu, fought with Gome Huang Guangyu for 20 years, lost in 2021, resigned as chairman, and retired in embarrassment.

When Suning Building was about to collapse, Zhang Jindong returned to the market in a high-profile manner.

A clear signal is that Suning has recently opened a store battle very much, only around May Day has landed 17 big stores, it is reported that during the 618 period, there will be more than 20 new stores of more than 10,000 square meters.

Zhang Jindong also frequently appeared in person to negotiate with suppliers, which is quite a return to the front desk.

The golden age is gone, will this still be a wonderful story of "the return of the heroes"?

01

Zhang Jindong's last "Don Quixote"-style business tycoon, in the early years, borrowed 100,000 yuan, opened a 200-square-meter air-conditioning store, named "Suning", in the era of rapid development of the retail industry, with the service of "door-to-door installation", rapid expansion.

In the first year of the company's establishment, Suning achieved a good result of revenue of 60 million yuan and a net profit of 10 million yuan. Subsequently, Zhang Jindong waved his bold words - "Even if it loses 40 million, Suning will be a home appliance store."

In 2004, Suning finally went public after 14 years of ups and downs, and on the day the bell rang, Zhang Jindong even cracked the mallet. Pressing the home appliance retail giant Gome, which has been listed, opened a situation of "the United States and the Soviet Union competing for hegemony".

In 2006, Zhang Jindong said ruthlessly, if Suning couldn't do Gome, he would give Suning to Huang Guangyu.

In November 2008, Huang Guangyu entered. Until 2011, Zhang Jindong lived three years with almost no competitors.

Suning's main business income rose from 48.3 billion yuan in 2008 to 92.4 billion yuan in 2011. In the same year, Suning's revenue, profit, number of stores and other indicators reached an all-time high under Zhang Jindong, making it one of the most profitable retail companies in China.

But the good times didn't last long, in 2012, the famous "815 battle" started, and Suning, which was stunned, began to transform, changed its name to Suning Cloud Business, and also opened the road of losses year after year.

Since then, Suning.com's revenue and profits have been declining, as the core business of the Zhang Jindong family, Suning.com's operation can be described as plummeting.

In 2015, under the pressure of competition with JD.com, Suning chose to make a bloody alliance with the e-commerce boss Alibaba, but shopping malls are like battlefields, which big brother is really willing to support a competitor to come out?

In terms of investment, Suning's involvement in almost all areas has chosen bad timing, so it has repeatedly failed. According to relevant media statistics, from 2012 to 2020, Suning's foreign investment was as high as 78 billion yuan, and the return on the book was basically 0.

After the epidemic in 2020, Suning's losses further increased and began to fall into a liquidity crisis. In 2021 alone, Suning's loss will exceed 40 billion yuan, ranking first in the A-share market loss list. In May 2022, Suning Tesco was "hatted" due to losses for three consecutive years and changed its name to "ST Tesco".

In addition, many people in the industry believe that the last straw that crushed Suning was the collapse of Evergrande's real estate empire.

Zhang Jindong once incarnated as a white knight in 2017 and invested a huge amount of 20 billion yuan in Evergrande Real Estate, but with the collapse of Evergrande Real Estate later, Suning's 20 billion yuan could only be lost.

In July 2021, "the road ahead is mighty, everything can be expected", Zhang Jindong gloomily stepped down as the chairman of Suning Tesco, and the baton was transferred to Huang Mingduan, an executive of the Alibaba department.

Zhang Jindong's last insistence and efforts were to send his son-in-law Zhang Kangyang to the position of director.

02

Speaking of the "second generation of elites" Zhang Kangyang, it is another story.

In 1990, Zhang Jindong founded Suning. A year later, on December 21, 1991, Zhang Kangyang was born.

Looking at Zhang Kangyang's resume, he is quite similar to Wang Sicong and other rich second generations, he studied at Moxisburg College, an elite boarding school, and chose the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school, for college.

In 2015, Zhang Kangyang, who majored in finance, returned to Suning again to start the road of succession.

Zhang Kangyang's current position, source: Tianyancha

The first battle after taking over was vigorous, and he personally managed 2 billion yuan to acquire about 70% of the shares of Inter Milan Football Club.

In the arena of heroes judged by success or failure, Zhang Kangyang showed a rare "talent" for team management among his peers, leading Inter Milan to break the puzzle, get out of the fog, and return to the Champions League.

The 27-year-old Zhang Kangyang also became the youngest president in the history of Inter Milan Football Club.

During the eight years of Suning and Zhang Kangyang's rule, Inter Milan won a total of seven titles, two Serie A titles, two Coppa Italia titles and three Italian Super Cups. Valuations have also risen in line with the results, from 400 million euros to 1.2 billion euros.

"There are no cowards in the gate, and there are no dogs in the tiger father", the first military order issued by Zhang Jindong, Zhang Kangyang handed in a satisfactory answer.

A few days ago, when Inter Milan was still immersed in the joy of just lifting the 20th championship trophy in the club's history, a bolt from the blue came: "Oaktree Capital" limited Zhang Kangyang to pay off the arrears of 375 million euros within 3 days, otherwise all the shares of Zhang Kangyang in Inter Milan would be confiscated.

What's going on? When Suning was in a financial crisis, in order to maintain the operation of the team, Inter Milan borrowed 275 million euros from Oaktree Capital in 2021, with an annual interest rate of 12%, and agreed to pay the principal and interest after three years, that is, due in May this year.

If not, it means that control of Inter will be handed over to someone else.

Xiao Zhang, who owes debts, did not sit still. It is said that I have found the financiers of Saudi Arabia, Europe and the United States, but because the valuation is too high, I have not negotiated; When the debt was due, Xiao Zhang Kangyang found a savior, promising a higher interest rate to let another company pay 375 million arrears first, "borrowing new to repay the old".

Who knew that on the eve of payment, the company suddenly changed its mind and terminated the cooperation on the grounds that "Zhang Kangyang's historical credit is not good", and the reason became "Rashomon".

Xiao Zhang also issued a statement saying that the failure was due to someone obstructing it, and bluntly said that it was Oaktree Capital's unilateral legal threats and malicious actions that led to his eventual loss of Inter ownership.

In fact, what affected Xiao Zhang's credit was the CCB incident, which caused a lot of trouble. Suning Store was once regarded by Lao Zhang as the hope of revival, and in 2019, Xiao Zhang took over Suning Store. But this business did not take off, and when the capital chain was tight, Xiao Zhang's wholly-owned subsidiary, Great Matrix Limited, borrowed US$250 million from CCB in Hong Kong.

The borrowings, which were due on 10 September 2021, were accelerated to 5 July 2021 due to various default events that touched Suning.

In court, Zhang Kangyang once found a reason to excuse himself, "It seems that some staff involved in the 'project' have dealings with the bank, and may have forged my signature to represent the company and assist in 'refinancing'." ”

However, according to the appraisal of handwriting experts, most of the signatures on the documents involved in the case were signed by Zhang Kangyang himself. Five of the six signatures on the copy of the agreement were written by Zhang Kangyang, and the rest were electronic copies.

Xiao Zhang's huge debt in China Construction Bank has led to a decline in the trust of foreign investment funds, and he has been blacklisted, so it is naturally difficult to borrow money.

At the same time, overseas creditors sued Xiao Zhang in the United States, Italy and other places at the same time, demanding that he repay the money, which was dubbed by the media as "Zhang Jindong and his son were collected by the world for debts".

There are still many people who launder Xiao Zhang, and American capital is doing a game to plunder China's assets, so what can he say about the money he owes to CCB and spends a lot of luxury cars and watches abroad?

Xiao Zhang, who is unable to repay the loan, will leave Inter Milan, a Serie A club that will be owned by American capital for the first time.

When Xiao Zhang "disappeared" from the spotlight, Lao Zhang became active again.

03

Since last year, Zhang Jindong has frequently appeared in the public eye as the honorary chairman of Suning Tesco and the chairman of Suning Holding Group to guide the work.

At the end of last year, Zhang Jindong held strategic conferences with Hisense, BSH and Haier to determine the annual cooperation goal of 10 billion yuan. Since the beginning of this year, the same type of strategic cooperation has been extended to giants such as Samsung, Panasonic Ice Wash, and Midea, and the scale of cooperation is mostly at the level of 10 billion.

The most recent appearance was in May, when Zhang Jindong met with Kevin Wheeler, CEO of A.O. Smith Group, and his party, and the two sides exchanged views on kitchen appliance cooperation.

In fact, in April last year, the board of directors of Suning Tesco was re-elected, and industry insiders believed that Zhang Jindong had made a comeback. In that adjustment, there was only one person left in the Ali department on the board of directors, and the new chairman Ren Jun belonged to the Suning department.

Zhang Jindong's focus now is to focus on 3C home furnishing and pragmatically open stores. After going around and around, he still returned to his familiar home field - offline and electrical 3C.

At the annual work deployment meeting, Zhang Jindong talked about management experience and bluntly said that he would achieve comprehensive profitability in the new year. However, the situation between Zhang Jindong and Suning is still very tricky.

Source: Oriental Fortune

In the past four years, Suning's total net loss has been as high as 70 billion yuan, almost exhausting 30 years of family funds.

In fiscal year 2023, Suning Tesco's revenue will shrink to 62.627 billion yuan, which is only a fraction of the volume at its peak, a decrease of more than 200 billion yuan. But this has been Suning.com's most "good" year in the last four consecutive net profit loss fiscal years.

"Time is running out, seize the day, and start a new breakthrough." Zhang Jindong is looking forward to 2024.

Zhang Jindong, who is over 60 years old, is still working hard for the business empire he founded more than 30 years ago.

Zhang Jindong's road to rejuvenation still has a long way to go, I don't know if I can pay back the money for my son first?

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