Reporters | Peng Zhengziyan and Xu Fei
Editor| Xu Fei
The temperature in Shanghai was unusually cold in February this year, and a group of people who have invested money in their feelings and want to make a career will probably feel even more chilled. Just before the Spring Festival, when the co-founder of Zhang Jiajia's Roll Fu Restaurant was negotiating with the initiator and the platform, another celebrity catering project that began with "Let's Start", "Meet Under the Banyan Tree", also "suspended the business" of the only store located in Shanghai's Hong Kong Plaza without the co-founder's knowledge.
The initiator of the "Meet Under the Banyan Tree" project is the Internet entrepreneur William Zhu, the name of the restaurant comes from the literary website "Under the Banyan Tree" that he founded in 1997 and was acquired by Bertelsmann in 2002, which may be unfamiliar to the public, but his "Under the Banyan Tree" is the peach blossom source of many literary youth at the beginning of this century, Han Han, Ning Caishen, Anne Baby and others have published works there. In addition to the endorsements and recommendations of these people, including Kong Ergou, Wang Xiaoshan, Chen Cun and others have also publicly promoted this crowdfunding project on Weibo.
The crowdfunding content of the project is divided into five grades, and the highest level of crowdfunding participation is to invest 37,500 yuan to get 0.5% dividend rights, skip-the-line 20% discount and an in-depth experience invitation ticket, which is basically similar to the crowdfunding idea of The Roll Fu Restaurant. After the launch of this project, the total number of people who subscribed reached 324, and the amount of crowdfunding exceeded 5 million, compared with the target amount of 300,000, the subscription rate was as high as 1745.57%.
Zhu Hong, the co-founder of the "Meet Under the Banyan Tree" project, told Interface Entertainment that the choice to recognize this project is based on her feelings for the literary website "Under the Banyan Tree", she believes that this restaurant is the best way to continue the literary complex of that year, and most of the other co-builders are also moved by the "under the banyan tree" described by Zhu William. At the same time, seeing the popularity of many celebrity internet celebrity restaurants before, I also think that it is a promising project.
In August 2016, the "Meet Under the Banyan Tree" crowdfunding ended, in October of the same year, the restaurant officially opened to the public, through the Network search can find that after the opening of "Meet under the Banyan Tree", it received a large number of shanghai local food marketing number recommendations, even Zhu Hong also felt that in terms of her experience of often going to dine, "at least the first two-thirds of the time the business is very good." Especially when it first opened, it once became an 'internet celebrity shop', and it was necessary to queue up on weekday evenings and weekends, especially on weekends. According to Zhu Hong, since the second half of last year, the business of the store has obviously cooled down, starting with no reservation and queuing, and then the attendance rate has also dropped significantly, basically less than half of the attendance rate every day.
According to Zhu Hong, on January 23 this year, Zhu William suddenly issued the 2017 annual operating statement in the communication group of the co-builders, with a paragraph attached, to the effect that the initial operation stage of the restaurant was responsible for Xu Wenjun and his team, and in December 2016, the overall operation was handed over to Hangzhou Fu Yueliang and his management team. However, the replacement of the operation team did not improve the profitability of the restaurant, coupled with the closure of the underground subway floor of Hong Kong Plaza due to nearby construction, resulting in a sharp decrease in passenger flow, based on a variety of reasons, the restaurant as a whole was in a loss in 2017, William Chu said that Hui Wenjun is also communicating with Hong Kong Plaza, hoping to obtain rent-free support from the property so that the restaurant can continue to operate. But then William Zhu informed the co-builders that in order to save the high labor costs during the Spring Festival, they decided to suspend the restaurant to control the loss, and the next day after the notice was issued, some co-builders went to find that the restaurant had been closed. Until February 26, the restaurant's official account issued the "Member Refund Instructions".
Although William Zhu still insists on just "suspending business", but according to Zhu Hong and other co-builders to the Hong Kong Plaza Leasing Department to inquire, learned that the restaurant's lease contract has ended, so the restaurant has almost no possibility of reopening, interface entertainment to Hong Kong Plaza after checking, found that the fourth floor of the south district originally belonged to the "under the banyan tree" shop has been rearranged, the mall staff also said that the shop has been closed and re-leased. The co-founders speculate that the reason why William Zhu and the operator are unwilling to admit that the restaurant has officially closed is because the contract signed by the two parties clearly stipulates: "Party A will refund the principal within 20 working days due to the termination of the project", and once they admit that the restaurant is closed, they need to face large-scale principal refund requirements.
From the unilateral "suspension of business" of the restaurant by the operator, the co-construction talents began to realize that their principal may not be able to get back, on the one hand, Zhu William, who has been communicating, said that he only used the "under the banyan tree" brand to account for 20% of the shares, and he had no real power and did not participate in management. At the same time, Zhu Hong recalled that at the beginning of the project, they were told that the valuation of the restaurant reached 7.5 million, the 80 co-builders actually contributed 3.0375 million, the crowdfunding fee was 196,700, accounting for 40% of the shares, and the remaining individual shareholders actually contributed more than 2.4 million yuan but held the same proportion of the shares as the co-builders.
In addition to William Zhu, the other two major shareholders are Xu Wenjun, a shareholder of Shanghai Da Cuisine Company, which is also the main operating company of "Meet Under the Banyan Tree", and Fu Yueliang, the chef of the restaurant, is another major shareholder, accounting for 40% of the total. Therefore, from the perspective of shareholding ratio, 80 co-founders should be the majority shareholders of this restaurant, but in actual operation, not only is it difficult for co-builders to understand the financial situation of the restaurant in time, but even the major decision of the restaurant "suspending business" is not involved.
Until the restaurant was "suspended", the co-construction talent began to sort out a series of unreasonable phenomena in the business process, first of all, the financial statement problem has become a cliché, in addition to not providing in time, the financial statements are also full of loopholes, the monetary fund column even appeared -1.9162 million yuan, and these questions have not been explained by the operation and financial personnel. In addition, the daily operation of the restaurant, the executives who have appeared in about half a year have left in a large area, and the restaurant management has changed blood. Including the roadshow before the crowdfunding, the license processing of Shanghai Da cuisine company and other expenses are included in the later operating expenses.
By viewing the business report of Shanghai Da Cuisine Catering Management Co., Ltd., the interface entertainment reporter also found that some shareholders related party transactions, "meet under the banyan tree" is only a single store independent operation, but the restaurant also needs to pay 5% of the turnover management fee to a restaurant management co., Ltd. called Hangzhou Kitchen Xiang every month, this management company is the restaurant chef and shareholder Fu Yueliang's name of the enterprise, Fu Yueliang is the daily actual manager of the restaurant. At the same time, the restaurant paid a monthly brand planning fee of 30,000 yuan to a company called Shanghai Dazan Marketing Planning Co., Ltd. in April 2016 before the crowdfunding began, with a total of 360,000 yuan as of March 2017, and the legal person of the marketing planning company was also Xu Wenjun, a shareholder of the restaurant. At the same time, the salary of the restaurant to the store manager and employees is also significantly higher than the average level, which undoubtedly further increases the company's labor cost burden.
However, as the initiator of this project, Zhu William's role in it seems to be far from being as simple as he said, according to the information disclosed by Tianyancha, the shareholder and legal representative of Shanghai Da cuisine Company is Jianxuan, and she and Zhu William are husband and wife. At the same time, Jianxuan is also a shareholder and legal representative of a number of catering companies invested by Shanghai YeYi Catering Management Co., Ltd., and Shanghai Yeyi Catering Management Co., Ltd. is the management company of another celebrity restaurant "Glad to Meet You", because of Zhu William's Chinese-American status, his shares in "Glad to Know You" and "Under the Banyan Tree" are held by his wife Jianxuan. However, because Han Han's star aura is too dazzling, the former, whether popular or unsuccessful, is easy to ignore that William Zhu already has investment experience in this kind of celebrity love restaurant.
Up to now, it is almost difficult for Zhu Hong and other co-founders to get back the principal through consultation with the operator, and then they may try to protect their rights and interests through legal means. As a crowdfunding platform party, "Start It" also proposes in a timely manner that under the premise that the co-builder can promise not to pursue the responsibility of the platform party, "Start It" can provide free audits and lawyers to assist the co-founder in recovering the principal. For this statement, the public relations personnel of "Let's Get Started" told Interface Entertainment that after verifying the entire intervention process, no relevant personnel made similar requirements for the co-founders.
At the same time, Zhu Hong also revealed another information, after the co-builders in the "Meet Under the Banyan Tree" project participated in the "Start It" other crowdfunding projects failed, the platform party intervened and chose to cooperate with an asset management company named Dingheng, and Dingheng uniformly acquired the equity in the hands of the co-builders, and some of the co-builders have already received compensation. However, in this regard, the reply given by the staff of Dingheng Asset Management is that Dingheng has its own evaluation standards for each specific project, and the operation of individual cases is not repetitive, and it is inconvenient to disclose what the specific standards are.
After getting in touch with "Start It", the other party said that they began to intervene shortly after the project announced the "suspension of business", and from a document provided by them on the "Follow-up of the Project Under the Banyan Tree", it can also be seen that "Start Bar" has communicated with the co-founder and the promoter after the formal intervention on February 22, and at the same time introduced the aforementioned Dingheng Asset Management Company and lawyers and audits. However, from the follow-up situation, it can be seen that the primary appeal of the co-builders is to quickly retrieve their own principal, so they have questions about the ideas put forward by the two platform parties of taking legal measures to protect their rights and financial audits, and they prefer that the platform parties can directly repurchase the project.
At present, the co-builders have not yet reached an agreement on how to protect their rights, and Zhu Hong also put forward another hidden worry, although they are the co-builders of the project, but the so-called restaurant valuation, co-builders share shares, they can not provide written evidence, if the final real court, can not come up with strong evidence for them it is still difficult to seek justice. According to the "let's start" statement, as of March 30 at the latest, after communication, As the initiator of the project, William Zhu is willing to cooperate with Dingheng to carry out rights protection work, and is willing to bear the compensation for the part of his subscribed capital contribution, and will jointly issue a compensation plan with other shareholders before March 30 at the earliest. However, as of press time, William Zhu himself did not reply to Interface Entertainment on the relevant situation of the project.
Since the fan economy began to flourish, the catering industry has successively appeared a lot of brands that rely on the celebrity effect of stars to expand rapidly, "it is very nice to meet you", "Miss Zhao is not equal", "Roll Fu Restaurant", "Meet under the Banyan Tree" These stores are not brilliant in the net red shops, but when these restaurants are combined with Han Han, Zhao Ruohong, Zhang Jiajia, Zhu William and other quite topical celebrities, there will always be people willing to pay for it, or even invest.
Several of the above-mentioned celebrity catering brands, now only "glad to meet you" and some stores are insisting on operating, due to the negative news in the past two years, many cities of the "glad to meet you" chain stores have been closed, the remaining stores according to the report is only barely maintained, the past hot situation is no longer. The six "Miss Zhao unequal" chains founded by Shanghai-famous anchor Zhao Ruohong also closed in October last year.
However, the "Roll Fu Restaurant" that appeared since 2016 is similar to the "Meet under the Banyan Tree" that appeared later, and it seems to have learned the experience of the first generation of "celebrity restaurants" from the capital level, not only to attract many fans into the store for direct consumption, but even to absorb fans through the crowdfunding platform in the early stage to become shareholders (internally known as "co-builders"), so as to avoid risks for the real promoters and major shareholders.
As can be seen from the crowdfunding page at that time, this time, Jiang Zhengwen, the planner of "Chu Orange", launched a crowdfunding campaign in "Let's Start", trying to build the "Roll Fu" crayfish brand that he and writer Zhang Jiajia originally sold online into a physical restaurant. Although "Chu Orange" is not small in fame, Jiang Zhengwen, as the behind-the-scenes planner, is not an "Internet celebrity", so the entire Volume Fu project will be the best-selling author Zhang Jiajia as the main publicity gimmick, and in its crowdfunding self-description, it is also directly mentioned: "Zhang Jiajia is already China's 'most storytelling writer', in addition to being able to ridicule each other's stomach and hair, I hope to be able to explain the rhetoric of the year, and the desire to open a crayfish shop is extremely strong." And posted a Weibo screenshot of the method of frying crayfish that Zhang Jiajia once sent on Weibo, which proved that Zhang Jiajia had a lot of research on crayfish cooking.
The first crowdfunding of The Roll Fu Restaurant, the crowdfunding content is divided into two categories, one is that each person can become a member for 300 yuan, and the members enjoy the qualification of 60% off settlement within one year; the other is that if you pay 30,000 yuan, you can become a co-sponsor, and the co-promoters each share a 1% dividend per single store. Based on the blind trust in the celebrity effect, the crowdfunding project reached more than 2.8 million subscriptions in 25 hours, and the final subscription rate reached a staggering 284.35%, with a total of 326 people participating in the crowdfunding. There were 100 co-founders who chose a maximum support amount of 30,000 yuan, but the crowdfunding project was initially set at only 50 co-sponsors. Jiang Zhengwen, the project leader, then updated that "one-on-one communication will be carried out on the co-sponsors" and screened, which shows the popularity of the project.
Just before the official opening of the Shanghai store, in February 2016, The City Partner Plan was announced, and nine "Deep City Partners" were successively identified to try to open another Branch in ten cities outside of Shanghai. At the end of March, the Shanghai store was officially opened, and more than a month later, Jiang Zhengwen once again launched crowdfunding in "Let's Start", this time for the branch plan that has selected city partners to find a co-founder. Although the first store has just opened, this time the crowdfunding is more popular than before, and the original crowdfunding project of 1 million yuan was finally completed by 16.38 million, exceeding the scheduled target by 15 times, and a total of 630 people participated in the crowdfunding.
For more than a year, the restaurant has successively broken out the problem of poor management, according to a report by Entertainment Capital at the end of last month: "In one year, in addition to the Shanghai store, 10 crayfish stores have closed down due to 'poor management', and nearly 20 million crowdfunding funds have been lost." In addition, the operator has concealed a large number of phenomena in the whole process of concealing the actual operating conditions of the co-founders, including "suspected of forging shareholder signatures, falsification of industrial and commercial registration materials, related party transactions, and opaque equity distribution ratio and capital contribution". After the store was closed one after another, the biggest problem was that the tens of thousands of yuan of crowdfunding that the co-builders had invested in real money and silver before did not have any possibility of recovery, so many co-builders decided to sue the "Start It" as a crowdfunding platform and the operator Shanghai Wanli, and even did not rule out further suing Jiang Zhengwen and Zhang Jiajia for false publicity.
From the failure of the crowdfunding of the net space that broke out at the end of last year, to the unhappiness of the promoters and co-builders of this year's Roll Fu Restaurant and the "Meet Under the Banyan Tree", these bubbles that rely on celebrity effects or feelings will eventually burst. However, from this case after case, it seems that those who try to play tickets can always get out smoothly, but they leave a group of ordinary people who pay for their feelings anxiously and do not know how to end.
For the crowdfunding platform, the biggest problem facing it is also how to do a good job of risk control in the early stage of the project as much as possible, and the pre-due diligence and post-investment management of the project are also testing the professionalism of the operation team of the crowdfunding platform. According to the "2017 China Crowdfunding Industry Annual Report" released by Yingcan Consulting in January this year, as of the end of December 2017, there were 209 crowdfunding platforms in normal operation nationwide, compared with 427 at the end of 2016, a decline of 51.05%. It can be seen that in the context of the rectification of the Internet financial industry that has continued from last year to the present, the non-benign development of crowdfunding platforms is rapidly being eliminated by the market.
Of course, we can also see the active attempts of the platform side, "Get Started" mentioned in the reply to Interface Entertainment that they will launch the platform's "major dispute project disclosure function" no later than the end of April, although the effect remains to be observed, but more similar standardized operations are obviously very necessary for the platform side, investors and the entire industry.
(Zhu Hong is a pseudonym in the text)