Special writer Yan Na Reporter Dang Peng reported in Chengdu
Recently, Wanshijiufang (Tianjin) E-commerce Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Wanshijiufang") completed a series A financing, with a valuation of 5 billion yuan. It is reported that this round of financing is led by the investment institution Kaihui Fund, and the Chuangxiang Huanju Investment Fund under Pernod Ricard, one of the world's wine giants, is also invested. Up to now, the reporter's inquiry into Tianyancha found that Jiufang and its affiliates have not completed the relevant industrial and commercial registration changes.
After the press conference, the industry's discussion of The Unbridled Jiufang showed a polarization. In the Comment Area of the WeChat public account that Wanton Jiufang announced to obtain financing, the shareholders and partners of Wanton Jiufang have expressed their confidence in the company, saying that "Wanton Jiufang is unstoppable". In addition, some commentators questioned the data and targets released at the press conference of Jiufang, believing that its valuation was inflated, its production capacity and performance targets were too large, and the path of internationalization was difficult to follow.
The reporter of China Business Daily sent an interview letter on the above issues to Zhang Xinzhong, co-founder, chairman of the board of supervisors and general manager of Pengcheng Distillery, and as of press time, there was no reply.
Business model questioned International expansion is not easy
Wanton Jiufang is an Internet brand established through cross-border crowdfunding. According to its official introduction, Zhang Chuanzong, the founder of the Brand of Wanshijiufang, gathered 49 ELITEs in the IT industry and raised more than 5 million yuan of initial funds in the form of crowdfunding, forming the first level of crowdfunding shareholders of Wanshijiufang. Subsequently, branches were set up again through crowdfunding in various provinces and cities across the country, and in the way of "crowdfunding shareholders enjoy both dividends from branch shareholders and joint sales of products", a rudder was quickly built in 15 provinces and cities across the country.
Zhang Chuanzong previously introduced in the public channel, unlike the traditional liquor has layers of distributors, agents, wanton jiufang for two levels of equity crowdfunding, from the general rudder to the rudder, tangkou, only two levels, there is no hierarchy in the middle, the channel cost is reduced to the minimum.
However, according to media reports, the "Responsibilities, Rights and Interests enjoyed by crowdfunding shareholders" released by Jiufang shows that "all shareholders have the responsibility to promote, sell and endorse" and "dock the rudder and even the national network and platform". Jiufang adopts the model of "10,000 yuan deposit, 10,000 yuan to buy goods, crowdfunding to a low price, and secondary crowdfunding to sell at a higher price". Some industry experts said that this model is equivalent to "directly pressing the goods to the crowdfunding shareholders." In this regard, the reporter repeatedly called the official website of Jiufang to inquire, but no one answered.
The reporter called the Qingcheng rudder of Jiufang as an investor, and its general manager Zhao Ming revealed that the current opening of a franchise store requires a deposit of 10,000 yuan and the first time there is a purchase volume of 350,000 yuan. In addition, it is also required that the area of the franchise store be 100 to 150 square meters, and it is necessary to open a store in a location that is facing the street and where middle-class families are concentrated.
At the press conference, Jiufang announced that it would form a system of 5,000 new retail chain stores across the country in the future. According to the official website of Wanshijiufang, at present, Wanshijiufang has thousands of branches and offline franchise stores across the country, with more than 20,000 shareholder-level partners. But strangely, entering the names of many franchise stores displayed on its official website into AutoNavi Maps, it cannot display the addresses. After randomly visiting two franchise stores in Chengdu, the reporter found that the Wanjiu Yurentang franchise store was opened in the apartment building, and the Huangjiu Wolongtang franchise store was opened behind the tennis court in the residential area, and the location was relatively hidden, which was different from the location requirements of Zhao Ming's "street-facing and middle-class family concentration area".
Cai Xuefei, an expert in the liquor industry, believes that from the perspective of mature brands such as 1919 chains and jiuxian network, Huazhi liquor store, And Baichuan famous products, the goal of 5,000 retail chains in Jiufang is very ambitious, which involves multiple levels of problems such as capital, personnel training, store operation, and product expansion. "It is easy to open a store quickly in the partnership model like Jiufang, but it is difficult to achieve coordinated development, which is very challenging to the later operation of the enterprise."
The reporter noted that founded in 1919 in 2006 currently has more than 1200 stores in the country, and the listed company Huazhi Liquor Co., Ltd. (300755. SZ) has more than 2,000 chain stores nationwide; the official website of the famous family shows that the total number of stores has exceeded 3,000.
In the official mall of Jiufang, the reporter found that among all the goods, the top products are peanut oil gift cards, peanuts, etc., while the best-selling liquor is the Jiufang Wedding Wine (sauce flavor type 53 degrees) priced at 399 yuan / bottle, and the sales ranking is 16. Among the top 50 products sold, only 11 kinds of alcohol are in the bottom rank.
In addition, in terms of market expansion, Jiufang claims to go international, but it is not easy for wine companies to go to sea. According to the data, since 2017, Guizhou Moutai (600519. SH), Yanghe Shares (002304. SZ), Luzhou Old Cellar (000568. SZ) and other liquor companies have announced that they will increase their overseas layout.
Judging from the 2020 financial report, in addition to the overseas sales data released by Guizhou Moutai and Luzhou Laojiao, other wine companies have not yet announced, and the proportion of overseas sales revenue of the two to total revenue is 2.56% and 0.30% respectively, which shows that the internationalization of wine companies is not easy. Cai Xuefei said that the internationalization of traditional Chinese liquor involves many major differences in drinking standards, foreign tax supervision and consumer drinking habits, etc. At present, the internationalization of Chinese liquor is mainly concentrated in the Chinese population, and the scale is very limited.
In addition, even with the blessing of the liquor giants, the road of Chinese liquor companies to the sea is also a bit difficult. For example, although Shuijingfang is backed by the liquor giant Diageo, the export revenue of Shuijingfang accounted for about 0.7% of the total revenue in 2019, and the data in 2020 was only 2.88%. Therefore, after the investment of one of the liquor giants, Pernod Ricard, it is still unknown how much it can empower The Jiufang.
Cai Xuefei said that the influence of the emerging brand of Jiufang is very limited, and it should only be a point-like attempt, and the publicity value is greater than the actual sales value.
The sauce and wine fever has led to high valuations and caused controversy
At the financing conference, the data of the financing valuation of 5 billion yuan attracted the attention of the industry. At that time, 1919, the largest liquor e-commerce platform in China, was valued at 7 billion yuan when it completed Ali's strategic investment of 2 billion yuan in 2018; at the end of last year, Baode shares (300023. SZ) announced its intention to acquire the famous family for 1.122 billion yuan in cash, with an appraisal appreciation rate of 234.85%, which once caused controversy. As a result, the valuation of Jiufang, which has been established for only 6 years, has reached 5 billion yuan, is there an inflated amount?
Cai Xuefei said that as a rapidly developing sauce wine brand under the sauce wine boom, and is a commercial body with community fission attributes, there is currently a suspicion of high from the perspective of traditional wine valuation, but from the perspective of digital economy and resource integration, there will be corresponding consideration of capital, and the level of valuation ultimately depends on the actual sales volume and influence of the enterprise.
In terms of financial objectives, Jiufang said, "It will complete the overall IPO listing work during the '14th Five-Year Plan' period, strive to create a listed company with an annual turnover of 10 billion yuan and a total market value of 100 billion, and strive to enter the camp of the top ten enterprises in China's liquor industry." ”
According to public data, the sales of Jiufang in fiscal 2020 are expected to reach 2 billion yuan. If calculated by this performance, if Jiufang wants to reach the target of 10 billion yuan in fiscal 2025, it means that the compound growth rate of its revenue in the next 5 years is 37.97%, and the expectation of the sauce and wine giant Moutai is only "the compound growth rate of revenue in the next 5 years is expected to reach 15%". At present, there are not many tens of billions of enterprises in the sauce wine enterprises, except for Maotai, only the revenue of Xijiu has exceeded 10 billion, and the revenue of Langjiu is nearly 10 billion.
In this regard, Cai Xuefei said that the reason for the high growth rate of Jiufang in recent years is the continuous popularity of sauce wine and its unique community partnership system. Overall, at present, there are no successful cases of liquor companies in China that have achieved tens of billions of yuan in the short term, and if Jiufang wants to achieve tens of billions, it must have multiple opportunities such as industry environment, enterprise management, and product sales. He believes that "under the squeeze of the stock market competition, the brand power of Jiufang has yet to be improved, the model and products have yet to be optimized, and it should only take tens of billions as its capitalization publicity goal, and the actual sales value is limited." ”
At the level of industrial chain layout, Jiufang claims to invest all the funds raised in Moutai Town and acquire more distilleries to increase larger-scale storage and brewing capacity. It is reported that Through the acquisition of small and medium-sized distilleries, Jiufang has laid out a production capacity of 10,000 tons in Moutai Town and built a 50,000-ton wine storage base.
At present, expanding production capacity through acquisitions and mergers and acquisitions is a routine operation of wine companies. Ruchuan Liquor Group achieved the goal of expanding production capacity by acquiring more than 200 small and medium-sized liquor enterprises. Wine industry observer Zhang Haoran told reporters that especially for sauce wine companies, the initial investment is huge, the sauce wine cellar pool can only be realized after more than 5 years of brewing, and expanding production capacity through the acquisition of wineries is a shortcut for wine companies. However, the unity and stability of wine quality test whether a wine company has a sound management system.
The data shows that the layout of Jiufang in the field of sauce and wine has greater ambitions. In 2020, the production capacity of Langjiu sauce wine is 50,000 tons, the output of Moutai Group's Moutai liquor base wine is about 50,200 tons, and the 50,000-ton wine storage base built by Jiufang means that it will target large-scale wine companies in the future. Judging from the published financial reports, only seven liquor companies have revenues of more than 10 billion yuan in 2020, and more companies have not exceeded 6 billion yuan, and even losses have occurred, and the market competition and overcapacity of Jiufang, which has not been laid out, remains to be seen.
It is worth noting that in addition to the unscrupulous Jiufang, in recent days, including Shuke and Jinsha Ancient Wine, they have put forward higher goals in terms of development strategy. Yike announced that it will build an industrial park with a brewing capacity of 50,000 kiloliters of sauce-flavored liquor by the end of 2025; Jinsha Ancient Wine announced that it will complete 16 billion yuan of performance during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. In addition, Guizhou Anjiu and Dongjiu have declared themselves to be one of the two famous liquors in Guizhou. Some media and industry experts have questioned the high profile of sauce and wine companies as "putting satellites". In this regard, Cai Xuefei commented: "The company's 'satellite- development goal, the publicity value is greater than the actual sales significance, more is to achieve the purpose of boosting market confidence and publicizing the company's brand." ”