WeiQiao"Old Tree Blossoms" Zhang Bo, the former grand duke of the rich family, changed

Wei Qiao, who once suffered from a decline in income and the death of a soul figure, is showing his vitality again.

The Beijing News reporter learned from the Shandong Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology that its official website disclosed the "Announcement on the Withdrawal of Production Capacity of Shandong Weiqiao Aluminum And Electricity Co., Ltd.", marking a substantial breakthrough in the plan to transfer Capacity to Yunnan for Weiqiao.

With long-term hard work in aluminum and textiles, Weiqiao Group ranks as the largest entity in China and the largest enterprise group in Shandong. However, in the past few years, with the founder Zhang Shiping seriously ill and died this year, weiqiao's development once received attention, and the sales revenue in 2018 fell by more than 20% compared with 2017, and was surpassed by Shandong Energy Group this year, retreating to the second largest enterprise in Shandong.

Nowadays, Zhang Shiping's son Zhang Bo has gradually provoked the girder, and this former tycoon has frequently appeared on major occasions to strongly promote the transformation and development of Weiqiao and achieve strategic cooperation with many industry leaders.

"Zhang Bo has now fully adapted to the role of chairman and is no longer the grand duke he used to be," a Zouping business insider told the Beijing News reporter.

Great strategic shift

On November 27, the Department of Industry and Information Technology of Shandong Province disclosed that in accordance with the relevant requirements of the Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Creating a Good Market Environment to Promote the Restructuring of the Nonferrous Metals Industry and Promoting Transformation and Efficiency Increase and the Notice of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on matters related to the implementation of capacity replacement by electrolytic aluminum enterprises through mergers and reorganizations, Shandong Weiqiao Aluminum Electric Co., Ltd. withdrew from the production capacity located in Zouping City, Binzhou City, Shandong Province, and its subsidiary Binzhou Hongnuo New Materials Co., Ltd. withdrew from the production capacity located in binzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone in Shandong Province The total capacity of the above withdrawal reached 2.03 million tons.

It is worth noting that its initiation of demolition will be before the completion and commissioning of the replacement project of Yunnan Hongtai New Materials Co., Ltd., which is weiqiao's registered company in Yunnan.

Electrolytic aluminum is the core business of Weiqiao Group, and Weiqiao is one of the world's largest producers of electrolytic aluminum, and its capacity transfer has attracted great attention.

Caixin reported on October 11 that the website of the Wenshan Prefecture People's Government of Yunnan Province released news on September 30 that the State Bureau of Ecology and Environment was promoting the environmental impact assessment of the Weiqiao hydropower aluminum project in Shandong Province. The project has a production capacity of 2 million tons and is located in Yanshan County. The information was subsequently removed from the Wenshan State Government website. Weiqiao Group then replied to Caixin reporters that Weiqiao Group is not convenient to respond to this matter at present, and will release the news after the fait accompli.

News of capacity transfers quickly solidified. According to the announcement of China Hongqiao, Shandong Weiqiao Pioneering Group Co., Ltd. and the People's Government of Yunnan Province signed a cooperation agreement on the joint construction of a green aluminum innovation industrial park. The Group will develop an optimal model for participating in such green aluminium innovation industrial parks on the basis of a combination of various factors, including considering the relocation of some of the Group's existing production equipment to such green aluminum innovation industrial parks, so as to minimize the impact on the Group's output.

According to public information, in October this year, Shandong Weiqiao Pioneering Group and the Yunnan Provincial Government cooperated to build a series of signing ceremonies for the Green Aluminum Innovation Industrial Park in Kunming, Yunnan. Chen Hao, secretary of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee, said that the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government attach great importance to cooperation with Weiqiao Pioneering Group, and today formed a "marriage relationship" with Weiqiao Pioneering Group, hoping that the two sides will lay a solid foundation for cooperation and achieve long-term development.

China Hongqiao said that participating in these green aluminum innovation industrial parks will help the group continue to deeply implement the development strategy of upstream and downstream integration, further increase the proportion of clean energy, and take the road of green and sustainable development, thereby further consolidating and enhancing the core competitiveness of the group.

In fact, Yunnan also attaches great importance to Weiqiao.

In November this year, a delegation of more than 20 people from Wenshan Prefecture Government in Yunnan Province, led by Zhang Xiulan, deputy secretary of the Wenshan Prefecture Party Committee and governor, came to Weiqiao Venture Group for inspection and exchange. Zhang Xiulan said that Weiqiao Pioneering Group is a very responsible Fortune 500 enterprise, with a high sense of social responsibility, and does not forget to drive the common development of downstream enterprises while developing itself. Wenshan Prefecture will do a good job in various services for enterprises in an all-round way, ensure the sufficient stability of factor resources, and go all out to support the implementation of the project.

Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture is located in the southwest border of the motherland in the southeast of Yunnan Province, south and Vietnam border, where bauxite resources are relatively rich, at present, the state's bauxite can be developed reserves of 110 million tons, the prospective reserves of more than 200 million tons, with the arrival of the world aluminum giant Weiqiao, Wenshan will become the future of aluminum has been said to have been in the industry.

A senior person in the aluminum industry told the Beijing News that for Weiqiao now, investing in Yunnan is a big plan related to the fundamental development of enterprises. Weiqiao in the past in the raw material costs, electricity costs, environmental protection costs are relatively high Shandong created the miracle of aluminum, now the situation has been very different, rather than under pressure, it is better to carry out strategic transfer.

Weiqiao, which has undergone a strategic shift, has undergone tremendous changes in the past few years.

The rich man carries the girder

In August 2017, China Hongqiao, a subsidiary of Weiqiao Group, announced the closure of 2.68 million tons of production capacity, triggering industry shocks. According to the subsequent announcement, China Hongqiao recorded an asset impairment loss of 3.166 billion yuan due to the shutdown of production capacity, an increase of 233.4 times over the same period last year.

Behind the shutdown of production capacity, the aluminum industry is facing increasing environmental pressure.

On November 26, 2017, the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced that the Third Central Environmental Protection Supervision Group had given feedback to Shandong Province on the inspection situation, and Weiqiao Group was named and criticized. The inspector pointed out that the "Ten Articles of the Atmosphere" clearly require that new projects prohibit the construction of self-owned coal-fired power stations, but in recent years, shandong province's self-owned coal-fired power stations have shown a spurt of growth. Since 2013, Binzhou Weiqiao Pioneering Group has built 45 units in violation of the law, and Binzhou Has not taken effective measures to stop it; Liaocheng Xinfa Group built 9 units in violation of the law, and Liaocheng City promoted the construction of illegal projects through measures such as leading package coordination and monthly scheduling. Due to the commissioning of a large number of coal-fired power stations, the coal consumption of the two cities has increased significantly, and the problem of air pollution is very prominent.

Weiqiao thus made a landslide.

According to the 2018 annual report of China Hongqiao, a listed company under Weiqiao Group, the group's revenue during the reporting period was about RMB90.195 billion, a decrease of about 7.9% year-on-year.

China Hongqiao said that the year-on-year decline in revenue in 2018 was mainly due to the closure of some aluminum alloy product production lines in the second half of 2017 in response to the supply-side reform of China's aluminum industry, resulting in a decrease in the output and sales volume of the Group's aluminum alloy products during the year compared with the same period last year.

In terms of Weiqiao Group, it achieved sales revenue of 283.5 billion yuan in 2018, down more than 20% from 359 billion yuan in 2017; profit in 2018 was 8.7 billion yuan, down nearly 34% from 13.13 billion yuan in 2017.

In November this year, the Shandong Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology announced the list of the top 100 enterprises in Shandong Province in 2018, and Weiqiao Group, which was at the top of the list in 2017, gave way to Shandong Energy Group, the largest state-owned enterprise in Shandong, and retreated to second place in 2018, with revenue of 284.487 billion yuan in 2018, a decrease of 75.091 billion yuan from last year.

Some voices pointed out that "success is also Xiao He and Xiao He", in the past two years, the two main industries of textile and aluminum industry that support Weiqiao have slowed down successively due to the dual factors of demand and environmental protection.

The shutdown of production capacity only lost wealth, and in 2019, weiqiao's soul died.

At 17:03 on May 23, 2019, Comrade Zhang Shiping, founder of Weiqiao Pioneering Group, died at the age of 73 due to ineffective medical treatment.

From the establishment of Weiqiao Cotton Textile Factory in Zouping County in 1994 and the director of the factory, to the upgrading of the factory to Weiqiao Pioneering Group, from entering the aluminum industry in 2001 to surpassing RUSAL to become the world's largest aluminum producer in 2014, Zhang Shiping led Weiqiao to rise to become one of the world's top 500 enterprises and the largest enterprise in Shandong, during which he survived several periods of macroeconomic difficulties. But a few years before his death, the industrial giant's body gradually disappeared.

After Zhang Shiping's death, whether Wei Qiao could continue to stand firm has become a question in the hearts of many people.

Judging from public information, Zhang Bo has been working in the Weiqiao system for many years. After graduating from Shandong Radio and Television University in August 1996, he returned to his father, and two years later he was appointed vice president of Weiqiao, and soon became the general manager of Weiqiao Textile, the most important industry of Weiqiao Group at that time. Subsequently, Zhang Bo was appointed as the chairman and general manager of Weiqiao Aluminum Electric to manage the aluminum power sector.

The Beijing News reporter learned that as early as Zhang Shiping's death, he had been prepared for the succession problem. In September 2018, the Beijing News exclusively reported that Zhang Shiping, chairman of Weiqiao Group, stepped down and Zhang Bo took over as chairman and legal representative of Weiqiao Group.

On October 7, 2018, Weiqiao Group held a meeting of all management cadres. Zhang Bo appeared as the chairman of the board, and Zhang Hongxia announced the new leadership team of the group as the secretary of the party committee and general manager of the group company.

At the cadre meeting, Zhang Bo spoke for the first time as chairman, and after reviewing the 37-year entrepreneurial process of the older generation leadership team headed by Chairman Zhang Shiping, he said that the baton of history has been passed to our generation, and we must carry the banner of Weiqiao entrepreneurship to move forward better.

The Beijing News reporter noted that Weiqiao Group released an article on May 22 entitled "Zhang Bo: The Chairman of the World's Top 500 Enterprises Is "Refined" in This Way", weiqiao, who has always been extremely low-key in brand promotion, also carried out image packaging for its chairman Zhang Bo.

The article said that "the city of Rome was not built in a day", and the "second-generation" chairman of the world's top 500 companies is not just the imaginary "golden spoon" born and can be established under the protection of his father. For example, Zhang Bo, his starting platform seems to be much higher than ordinary people, but the responsibilities he naturally has to bear are beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

According to the weiqiao group's public name "Weiqiao entrepreneurship" news, on May 31, Zhang Bo made his first public appearance after the death of his father Zhang Shiping, as the president of the Shandong Aluminum Association and the deputy secretary of the Binzhou Municipal Party Committee and mayor Yu Xiangdong attended the Binzhou • Foshan aluminum-related project accurate docking meeting, which aims to build a higher-level exchange and cooperation platform between Guangdong and Luzhou provinces, and seek mutually beneficial and win-win development opportunities for the aluminum industry.

Half a year later, on November 9, Weiqiao Group published the article "Zhang Bo Shares the Future Three Development Directions of enterprises", and the development strategy of Weiqiao in the Zhang Bo era was officially announced to the outside world.

The first direction is to actively seek structural adjustments. Zhang Bo pointed out that since the Eighteenth National Congress, every year our party's report will mention that "we must take supply-side structural reform as the main line, promote comprehensive deepening of reform, and achieve a higher level of opening up." "My understanding is that "three to one reduction and one supplement" is a direct embodiment of the structural reform of the supply side, and at the enterprise level, I think this adjustment should be more active, more long-term and more specific. This requires us: First of all, we must adhere to the main business of refinement and accelerate the extension to the high-end of the industry.

From this, Zhang Bo mentioned the transfer of production capacity in Yunnan.

Zhang Bo pointed out that we will make full use of the advantages of hydropower resources in Yunnan to build a hydropower aluminum industrial park, expand the proportion of clean energy, and optimize the energy consumption structure of enterprises. At the same time, we will also strengthen the recycling of recycled aluminum and strive to build the largest recycled aluminum recycling industry base in China.

Join hands with Shandong peers

After the transfer of part of the primary aluminum production capacity, Zhang Bo plans to lay out automotive lightweight in Shandong, the base camp: "We will focus on the development direction of lightweighting, accelerate the construction of lightweight bases, strengthen cooperation with strategic partners at home and abroad, and build China's largest full-process automotive lightweight R&D and manufacturing base and the world's leading aluminum lightweight materials R&D center through the construction of lightweight structural parts projects, all-aluminum body assembly projects, lightweight pilot base projects, and the development of auto parts and core technologies for vehicle preparation." ”

Zhang Bo is targeting an emerging supermarket. In addition to weight reduction, another increasing advantage of aluminum is that it has good recycling properties relative to other similar products. Aluminum cost is low and recycling is simple.

According to the "Assessment Report on the Amount of Aluminum Used in China's Automotive Industry (2016-2030)", the average aluminum consumption of new energy vehicles in 2018 is estimated to be 141.5 kg (128.4 kg for pure electric vehicles and 179.6 kg for hybrid vehicles). The report predicts that by 2030 this figure will exceed 280 kg, and the unit consumption of aluminum for pure electric vehicles will reach 283.5 kg.

In September 2019, Weiqiao announced that the binzhou double-stroke and double-introduction key construction project was held at the centralized groundbreaking ceremony, including the Binzhou aluminum-based lightweight structural parts high-end manufacturing base project with a total investment of 1.7 billion yuan; the Aojie Automobile annual output of 500,000 all-aluminum body assembly project, which is jointly built by Suzhou Aojie Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. and Shandong Weiqiao Pioneering Group, with a planned investment of 500 million yuan; and the Shandong Weiqiao lightweight pilot base project, with a total planned investment of 300 million yuan.

In addition, Weiqiao is also working with many parties to promote the Weiqiao Guoke (Binzhou) Science and Technology Park project, with an investment of 8.5 billion yuan, and the partner is Weiqiao's old friend - CITIC.

According to the strategic cooperation agreement signed by Weiqiao Pioneering Group with CITIC Trust and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in August this year, all parties will jointly build an innovation research institute to promote the transfer and transformation of scientific research results and integrate global resources.

Liu Jiayi, secretary of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and director of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress, commented that he will continue to deepen the innovative mechanism of industry-university-research funding, promote the three parties to shake their fingers into fists, and deepen cooperation, and constantly make new breakthroughs.

As the big brother of Shandong private enterprises, especially in the aluminum industry, Weiqiao has also increased cooperation with Shandong enterprises.

On December 3, Nanshan Aluminum announced that it and Shandong Weiqiao Aluminum Electric Co., Ltd. and Shandong Innovative Metal Technology Co., Ltd. jointly invested in the establishment of Shandong Zhi Aluminum High Performance Alloy Material Co., Ltd., the company is mainly engaged in the basic research, design, preparation, heat treatment, simulation analysis, industrial design and other technical service business of lightweight alloy materials.

Nanshan Aluminum is a listed company under the Nanshan Group, another aluminum giant in Shandong, and Shandong Innovation, like Weiqiao, is located in Zouping, Shandong, and the three are private enterprises.

According to the announcement, the establishment of the joint venture company can effectively promote the construction of the manufacturing innovation center in Shandong Province, effectively serve the aluminum industry in Shandong Province, achieve complementary advantages, reduce costs, effectively promote product research and development, market expansion, talent introduction, and enhance the company's research and development level.

It is said that the "small goal" that Cui Lixin, chairman of Shandong Innovation Group, is now setting himself a "small goal" under the leadership of Weiqiao Pioneering Group, uniting all parties to do the automobile lightweight project first.

According to industrial and commercial information, Weiqiao also participated in the launch of Zouping Zoujin Asset Management Co., Ltd. in October this year, and other shareholders include Shandong Financial Asset Management Co., Ltd., Zouping State-owned Assets Investment Holding Co., Ltd., and Shandong Samsung Group.

Among them, the major shareholder, Shandong Financial Asset Management Co., Ltd., is a provincial-level financial asset management company approved by the Shandong Provincial People's Government.

The above-mentioned Zouping business people told the Beijing News reporter that Zhang Shiping was seriously ill in his later years, the enterprise shifted shifts, and WeiQiao's actions were indeed much less. After Zhang Bo became chairman, Wei Qiao did "move". Not to mention other places in Shandong, Zouping has encountered financial risks in recent years, weiqiao as a hundred billion large enterprises are not only stable, but also developing in a good direction, the significance to Zouping and even Shandong is extraordinary.

Beijing News reporter Lin Zi Editor Wang Yu Proofreader Li Shihui

Reporter's email: [email protected]