On August 18, 2021, the share prices of Shuanghui and WH Group experienced a sharp decline, and the market value evaporated by 16.5 billion yuan on that day.
The cause of the stock price crash was triggered by an article titled "Wan Hongjian: My Father and Bandung in My Eyes".
So, who is Bandung?
Wan Long, known as the "Jobs of the slaughtering industry", is the founder of WH Group. WH Group, formerly known as Shuanghui Group, is the result of more than 50 years of slaughtering business in Bandung.
Wan Long, chairman of Wanzhou International, once said: "I hope to become the lifelong chairman of Shuanghui and continue to develop and grow Shuanghui!" ”
Not only did he say it, but he did it.
For many years, Bandung has been firmly in control of Shuanghui's destiny. Armed with a sharp butcher's knife, he competed with the capital market and the system, and carried out countless drastic reforms, for which he was often criticized.
The author of the article, Wan Hongjian, was one of those who were skeptical of his father. As the eldest son of Wan Wan, he has always been seen as a potential successor to Bandung.
This time, Wan Hongjian listed the seven major sins of Bandung through the article, showing an attitude that is incompatible with his father.
After reading this article, the reader secretly thinks to himself: there seems to be something wrong with a son who has revealed his father's privacy.
What exactly did Bandung do? Why is the conflict with his son so deep?
Let's dive into Bandung's pork empire and explore his windy and rainy career as a "butcher".
The basis of the military
Born in 1940, Bandung grew up in turbulent times and had a hungry childhood. He joined the army before graduating from high school to satisfy his hunger.
His railway soldiers built railways in Fujian, Heilongjiang, Yunnan and other places. Despite the hardships of life, Bandung never complained.
In 1968, Wan Long changed jobs and was assigned to work at the loss-making state-owned Luohe Meat Factory, where his salary was paid by a bank loan.
Wan Long cherished this job, worked hard, and was gradually promoted from a clerk to a deputy factory director.
Although he has left the army, Wan Long still maintains the standard of a soldier, and he is punctual and adventurous, and these qualities make him deeply popular.
In 1984, the Luohe Meat Factory began to reform, and Wan Long became the director through democratic elections, and began to truly control the fate of himself and the meat factory.
At that time, the 44-year-old Wan Long was in the prime of life, but the financial situation of the meat factory he inherited was worrying, with total assets of only 4 million yuan and debts of 5 million yuan, and the factory could be shut down at any time due to lack of funds.
Workers live on a big pot of rice and often have idleness during working hours.
There are many deputy factory directors, and there are few things to do with high salaries.
Wan Long saw it in his eyes and was anxious in his heart. Once in office, he began to implement drastic reforms.
He first reformed the leadership team and replaced all deputy factory directors, and even the mayor's plea could not stop him.
He then rectified the workers who stole meat, personally inspected the factory gates, and fired 15 workers in succession, including the niece of the city leader, a move that shook Luohe.
As a result, Bandung became the target of public criticism, and was threatened with many things, some even throwing bricks at his house, and some people broke into his office with pig-killing knives.
Bandung still stuck to his path because he knew he had no way back but to move forward.
He went on to break the iron rice bowl system for workers in state-owned enterprises, making Luohe the first state-owned factory to implement performance-based wages.
After the reform, the original leading cadres were demoted, the salary changed, and the ability of employees became the key to promotion and salary increase, which enhanced the enthusiasm of the employees of the whole plant, and the atmosphere of the factory was greatly improved.
However, when there was no major problem with personnel, the shortage of live pigs became a new problem for Bandung.
As a state-owned enterprise, the price of buying pigs is set by the state, and pig farmers are mostly private individuals who sell their pigs to higher bidders.
After careful consideration, Bandung decided to take the risk of liberalizing the price of live pigs and buying them at market prices, and the price of pork was even one or two cents higher than that of self-employed people.
The policy attracted a large number of pig farmers to sell pork to meat factories, but it also attracted criticism from jealous people, who accused Bandung of raising pig prices and disrupting the market, and the incident was even reported to the provincial level.
In the face of inquiries from provincial leaders, Wan Long was calm and calm, and responded to the doubts with business data.
In that year, the meat factory turned losses into profits, not only paying off the historical debt of 5 million yuan, but also achieving a surplus of 8,000 yuan.
Wan Long led the meat factory to a successful turnaround, but he did not become complacent and further expanded his business.
After the New Year, on the one hand, he raised loans everywhere to expand the scale of production, and on the other hand, he actively explored the market, and even sold pork to Russia, accumulating more than 16 million yuan.
With the funds, Wan Long was not satisfied with just selling pork, he began to explore more long-term products.
The dedication of an entrepreneur
A train trip to Russia made Bandung realize that meat products can also be made into ham sausages, which are easier to transport and store.
He acted immediately, regardless of everyone's opposition, invested all his savings, introduced international advanced equipment, and began to produce ham sausages.
In 1992, the meat factory produced the first ham sausage in China, marking the birth of "Shuanghui ham sausage".
Knowing that the product is good, but it is difficult to succeed if it is not known, Wanlong knows the importance of advertising with many years of business experience.
He invited the most popular actors at the time, Ge You and Feng Gong, to be the advertising spokespersons, and Shuanghui ham sausage quickly became a household name, attracting thousands of dealers and quickly occupying the domestic market.
This boosted Bandung's confidence and made his goals clearer. He continued to develop new products, expanded the ham sausage production line, and launched the "Shuanghui King of the Best" made from 90% pork, further consolidating its market leadership.
In 1998, Shuanghui's annual revenue exceeded 2 billion yuan for the first time, becoming the industry leader. Other old ham brands such as Chundu and Zheng Rong were defeated one after another, and Wan Long proved that his decision was correct, and no one dared to oppose him.
In 1999, with the improvement of people's living standards, the requirements for pork quality also increased. In particular, the rapid reproduction of meat bacteria has become a major problem in the meat market.
Faced with this challenge, Bandung decided to introduce foreign "chilled meat" technology. Although this will significantly increase the cost, he still decided to invest more than 20 million yuan to build a cold meat production line.
Despite being ridiculed and ridiculed: "It's just killing a pig, and it's not a golden pig, it's strange if you don't lose money!" ”
But Wan Long disagreed, and he proved the market acceptance of chilled fresh meat with facts. Once listed, it was warmly welcomed by the market.
The Shuanghui chilled meat brand quickly set up chain stores in major cities across the country, and slaughtering and processing plants sprung up like mushrooms, with one slaughterhouse every 300 kilometers around Zhengzhou alone.
In that year, Shuanghui made a net profit of several million yuan.
However, with the rapid growth of the business, Shuanghui's slaughter volume and sales revenue also increased rapidly, and soon exceeded the 10 billion yuan mark.
In 2011, Shuanghui suffered a heavy blow due to the "3.15 Clenbuterol" incident, with a loss of up to 12.1 billion yuan, and its brand reputation was seriously damaged.
In the face of the crisis, the 71-year-old Wan Long did not back down, but held a meeting of 10,000 people on March 31 to publicly apologize to consumers.
He decided to increase the cost of the inspection to 300 million yuan, personally supervised the inspection process, and swore an oath with the inspectors: "It is better to be tested to death than to be killed!" ”
In order to ensure the quality of raw pork, he invested heavily in the construction of pig breeding bases, increased the proportion of self-raised pigs, and controlled the quality from the source.
With firm determination, he regained recognition and reputation in the market with high-quality products.
In 2013, Shuanghui created the highest revenue in history, exceeding 40 billion yuan, once again standing at the top of the industry.
The rise of Shuanghui is not achieved overnight, but to seize every opportunity and take every step to achieve today's achievements.
Operation of capital
For an enterprise, quality is the foundation, and capital operation is the key.
In terms of capital operation, Wan Long also showed unique insights. He did not stick to the old rules, but actively introduced external capital to enhance the strength of the enterprise. In his opinion, "without these big capital blessings, Shuanghui would have disappeared long ago." ”
In the early years, the meat factory lost money every year, and in order to keep the foundation, it was necessary to find a new way out and carry out innovative reforms. While the ideas are correct, they need financial support to bring them to life, and the banks are not optimistic about them after a long period of sluggish sales.
The dispatched salesman could not even get a penny of the loan, forcing Bandung to go out in person. In order to take out a loan, he waited for more than ten hours at the door of the bank president's house in the cold winter of Layue, and finally got the opportunity to meet the president.
When the president of the bank saw Wan Long, who was so cold that he couldn't speak clearly, he was moved by his livelihood for the factory, and approved a loan of 300,000 yuan to help the meat factory get out of trouble.
With its sensitivity to the capital market, Bandung has successively introduced more than a dozen investors. In addition, the resale of state-owned shares has completely changed the face of Shuanghui and changed its system.
Bandung adheres to the bottom line of not being controlled by capital.
In 1994, Hong Kong Chinachem Group invested 127 million yuan in Shuanghui, becoming the first enterprise to inject capital into Shuanghui. This fund has greatly helped Shuanghui expand its scale and achieve rapid development.
In the early days, Gong Xinru, chairman of Chinachem Group, tried to use this as a threat to control Shuanghui, and even proposed to replace Shuanghui's trademark with 300 million yuan.
Wan Long refused without hesitation and warned: "If you want to take control, withdraw your shares!" ”
Gong Xinru immediately stopped the threat, and got a dividend of 30 million yuan from Shuanghui in the first year, such a high return, except for Shuanghui, who can give her?
Shuanghui's profitability became Bandung's biggest bargaining chip, and no one dared to have any illusions about Shuanghui's independence again.
After the success of the first test, Bandung became even more bold, introducing 17 foreign companies to inject capital, and at the same time transferring state-owned property rights to Goldman Sachs and CDH.
Of course, Wanlong has set strict conditions: none of the companies that inject capital can become major shareholders, and companies that buy state-owned property rights are not allowed to resell their shares to their peers in Shuanghui.
Without exception, all 18 companies not only accepted the conditions, but were also very honored.
This series of operations has put Shuanghui on the track of rapid development. By 2010, Shuanghui's sales exceeded 50 billion yuan, making it the largest meat processing enterprise in Asia.
With the support of capital, Bandung's ambitions are no longer limited to the Asian market, and he begins to target the global market.
That's when he noticed the largest pork company in the United States, Smithfield. The company's production bases are located all over Europe, America and Asia.
Although Shuanghui International's funds were far from sufficient to acquire such a large company, and his son Wan Hongjian tried to dissuade him, Wan Long still insisted on his decision.
In September 2013, he borrowed US$7.1 billion to successfully acquire Smithfield Company and renamed it WH Group, which became the world's leading pork industry.
Bandung's position in the industry is unbreakable, but he doesn't stop there, but keeps going.
In 2016, he acquired two other companies in the United States, gradually transforming the traditional slaughtering industry into a modern industry, and entered the list of the world's top 500 companies, becoming the only food company on the list in China.
WH Group's global footprint reached a new high in 2020, with revenue approaching RMB200 billion.
It is often said that "ability is a person's confidence." ”
This is especially true for enterprises, and it is precisely because of profitability that Wanlong has the confidence to put forward requirements to the capital-injected enterprises, so that investors only need to care about profits, and it is strictly forbidden to interfere with the operation of enterprises.
With the support of funds, Wanlong has continued to carry out cross-border acquisitions and integration, gradually expanding its business territory, and making this Chinese food brand go global.
As a result, he is known as one of the thirteen "God of Food" in the world.
Doing something simple and doing it to the extreme is success
Today, the 83-year-old Wan Long enjoys a special allowance from the State Council, and he is not only a national model worker, but also a special meritorious hero of Luohe City.
He made it clear to everyone: "I'm not an entrepreneur, just a pig killer, and I only do one thing in my life, and that is to kill pigs." ”
He spent his life killing pigs to the extreme.
Some people say that Bandung is not working, but racing against time and against fate.
It took him just 30 years to build a debt-ridden meat conglomerate into the world's largest meat empire.
Even though he is old and his health is not as good as a year, the first thing he does every day is to open the information system in the office and check the condition of every factory, every assembly line, and even every pig.
He never had any intention of retiring, but was obsessed with the continuous expansion of the pork empire, and ambitiously hoped to lead Shuanghui further.
Perhaps many people do not understand what he is doing, thinking that he is obsessed with power and is unwilling to give power to his sons and nephews, and even his sons cannot understand some of his practices.
But for Bandung, who has worked hard since he was a child, he is just used to hard work, tired and tired, unwilling to succumb to the years and unwilling to become an idler.
He always acts like a true warrior, constantly charging forward!
The so-called endless life and struggle are not only the traditional virtues of the older generation of entrepreneurs, but also the attitude of life that our younger generation should have!