When I was a child after 80, in the hot summer, it was a happy and joyful thing to drink a can of Jianlibao. However, jianlibao has only gone through 18 years, and it has suffered the fate of being sold cheaply, and since then it has gradually faded out of people's vision.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="51" > distillery to come back to life and transform into a beverage</h1>
Li Jingwei, the founder of Jianlibao, was born in Sanshui County, Guangdong Province, and when he was still in his mother's belly, his father died in the war, and as soon as he was born, he was sent to an orphanage. In order to live, Li Jingwei learned to earn money to support himself from the age of 10, because he liked sports, was favored by the county sports committee, and was later promoted to deputy director of the county sports committee.
In 1973, Li Jingwei was transferred to Sanshui Distillery as the director, which is a small distillery on the verge of closure, in fact, there is a small workshop with several rice wine tanks, but after li Jingwei's operation and management, the distillery was brought back to life, and a beer production line was developed, which gradually gained a foothold and began to make profits.
However, such a small winery with an unknown name in the county, no matter how hard Li Jingwei tries, it is estimated that it will not develop well. So Li Jingwei wanted to produce high-grade drinks, but he didn't understand.
In 1982, by chance, he met Ouyang Xiao of the Guangdong Institute of Sports Research, and Professor Ouyang was developing a new type of carbonated drink. Two like-minded people soon reached a cooperation intention, Li Jingwei from the winery's meager profits, with funds for the research and development of beverages, if successful, Sanshui Distillery is responsible for the production and sales of beverages, and the two sides share profits.
After more than 100 experiments, Professor Ouyang finally developed a sports drink that integrates taste, nutrition, trace element supplementation and other characteristics, and its advantage over ordinary carbonated drinks is that after human exercise and a lot of sweating, the drink can play a role in replenishing minerals.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="57" > appeared at the AFC meeting and attracted orders</h1>
With the formula, how to produce and how to put it to market is the biggest problem facing the enterprise. Although Li Jingwei has not yet a clear idea, he knows that this is a sports drink that must be brought to the market through the Games.
In 1983, when Li Jingwei learned that the AFC would hold a meeting at the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou and that the president of the AFC would also be present, he realized that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to display drinks on the conference table. At this time, the drink did not even have a name, Li Jingwei spent a few days to come up with the three words "Jianlibao", and then quickly completed a series of procedures such as industrial and commercial registration.
What packaging is used? Li Jingwei went to the Shenzhen Pepsi Cola Factory, borrowed some empty cans from there, took them back to fill them with drinks, labeled them, and then presented 200 boxes of Jianlibao at the AFC meeting through connections. On the day of the meeting, when the president of the AFC picked up Jianlibao and was preparing to drink, the reporters next to him were "snapping, snapping" several consecutive shots.
Seeing this scene, Li Jingwei had a bottom in his heart, he used these photos to promote Jianlibao, for a time, many beverage distributors came to him to cooperate, and soon signed some orders.
In 1984, Jianlibao Beverage Factory was formally established, if you want to put into production it is so easy, a production line at least has to spend tens of millions, relying on the Sanshui distillery that little money is simply a cup of water, want to make the Sanshui County government to fund is also impossible, Li Jingwei has no money in his hands. Moreover, even if you can raise funds, you have to build factories, recruit managers, workers, etc., without a year or two to prepare, you can't produce finished products.
Li Jingwei had his own method, he found a reliable beverage factory, let it follow the recipe of Jianlibao, the beverage production. When Jianlibao is produced, it is sold to the distributor, who pays for the goods, and he pays the processing fee to the beverage factory. At the beginning, relying on this business strategy, Jianlibao Factory neither invested a large amount of money nor backlogged inventory, and a new sports drink was born.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="64" > sponsored the Olympic Games</h1>
Jianlibao's rise was largely due to the Los Angeles Olympics in August 1984. This year is of epoch-making commemorative significance, that is, the first year of jianlibao's birth, and the first year of China's return to the Olympic Games.
With the chairman of the AFC tasting Jianlibao as a paving stone, Li Jingwei mediated in many ways to make Jianlibao the designated drink of the Chinese delegation. In the Olympic games, the Chinese women's volleyball team defeated the host United States team for three consecutive sets, this time the Chinese delegation won a total of 15 gold medals, in a cheer, a foreign reporter inadvertently found that the Chinese women's volleyball players, drinking a brand that no one knows.
The reporter speculated that the Chinese team's victory in the Olympic Games was not related to this sports drink. Then, without going through the interview, the reporter wrote a "Fast Attack by "Magic Water" with his own ideas? The article said that the Chinese women's volleyball players won the championship because they drank the mysterious Oriental magic water.
What is even more unexpected is that a reporter accompanying the group in China wrote another article "China's Magic Water Sweeps Los Angeles" according to the article of foreign journalists. The two reporters' 2 reports made a free and effective advertisement for Jianlibao, which not only had the nickname of "Oriental Magic Water", but also became popular overnight. In the year of its establishment, Jianlibao sold more than 16 million cans.
In 1987, Guangdong Jianlibao Co., Ltd. was established, and the following year, Jianlibao's annual sales reached 324 million yuan. In 1990, Jianlibao became the largest sponsor of the Asian Games and became even more famous.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="70" > 10 years of rapid development</h1>
In the 1990s, it was the golden age in the history of Jianlibao's development, it was not only the first brand of Chinese beverages, but also established a branch in the United States when Coca-Cola and Pepsi Were competing for the market share of Chinese beverages, and bought a full floor of office space in the Empire State Building in New York.
In the years when Jianlibao was the most popular, Sanshui County was lined with cars from all over the country to pull drinks, and the scene was quite spectacular. In 1994, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the establishment of Jianlibao, the annual sales of the product exceeded 1.8 billion yuan, ranking first in the national beverage industry.
In 1997, the most brilliant year since the establishment of Jianlibao, in Guangzhou 38-storey Jianlibao Building was completed, Li Jingwei moved the headquarters here, the company's annual sales exceeded 5 billion yuan. Jianlibao's development momentum, after reaching its peak in 1997, began to decline, although in the following years, every year to take out a large amount of advertising money for publicity, but sales have not gone up, but there has been a decline.
In 1999, the sales volume declined rapidly, and at the same time, the institutional problems and internal management problems accumulated by the enterprise for many years were becoming more and more obvious, which seriously hindered the development of the enterprise.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="75" > internal contradictions begin to emerge</h1>
The tax revenue created by Jianlibao occupies half of the local fiscal revenue, it is no exaggeration to say that Jianlibao is the local god of wealth, when Li Jingwei considers the subsequent development of the enterprise, and moves the jianlibao headquarters to Guangzhou, in the eyes of most people, it is bound to affect the tax.
In the years of Li Jingwei's team, in the process of taking charge of Jianlibao Factory, the focus of work has been placed on the level of production, sales and other enterprise operations, and once ignored some important issues, such as the need to reform the enterprise according to the needs of the development of the market economy, to solve the problem of internal management of the enterprise, and to gradually carry out the modern enterprise management system.
However, these problems were never put on the agenda, and in 1997, after the relocation of Jianlibao's headquarters, the internal problems of the enterprise management that had accumulated for many years were highlighted. When all things accumulate together, and then communicate and solve, friction will inevitably occur in the middle, and the effect of communication is not as people wish.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="79" > internal contradictions have been exacerbated by listing and restructuring</h1>
Around 1993, China's stock market began to take off, some domestic high-quality enterprises with good development prospects were included in the list of listings by the government, and Jianlibao was naturally written on the first batch of listing lists in Guangdong Province. However, for unknown reasons, Li Jingwei refused to go public that year. Later, he regretted it, and in early 1997, Li Jingwei decided to list Jianlibao on the Hong Kong stock market.
When the enterprise prepared all the information required for listing, Foshan City and Guangdong Province also approved it, the CSRC pointed out a deficiency in the submitted information, and let the supplementary explanation of the purpose of raising funds, it seems that the possibility of the listing of Jianlibao is very large. Just as Jianlibao has been preparing for the listing for 8 months, in the autumn of this year, for the listing plan, the equity distribution of the company's management, the shareholders did not agree to Jianlibao's management team to buy the company's shares, in the face of this situation, Li Jingwei once again gave up the listing.
At this time, Li Jingwei considered that if enterprises want to continue to develop rapidly, the problem of restructuring should be solved as soon as possible. Therefore, in 1999, Li Jingwei's team submitted an equity restructuring plan for Jianlibao to the shareholders of the company, and it was proposed that the management of Jianlibao would raise 450 million yuan to purchase the equity held by the shareholders, but it was rejected. Since then, Li Jingwei's team has come up with several plans for enterprise restructuring, and the results can be imagined.
Jianlibao's listing work and restructuring work have not been able to develop as expected by the company's management team, which naturally aggravates the infighting of the company. Any enterprise can not withstand this toss, the internal struggle of the enterprise will not bring any good results, will only make the development of the enterprise seriously affected, Jianlibao is no exception.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="84" > businesses were sold cheaply due to infighting</h1>
Since 1997, Jianlibao has been infighting for 3 years, and by 2001, the consequences of infighting in enterprises have been revealed, and the annual sales volume of Jianlibao has fallen sharply, with an annual turnover of only 3.1 billion yuan, and the tax paid has dropped from 100 million yuan in the previous year to 20 million yuan.
Despite this, infighting has not stopped. In the end, the shareholders of Jianlibao decided to sell the equity of Jianlibao Company. At first, Singapore First Food Company wanted to take over Jianlibao for 380 million yuan. However, Jianlibao is a national brand in China, and if it is transferred to a foreign enterprise, it may have a bad impact on the hearts of the Chinese people.
As soon as the news came out, the media competed to report that under the pressure of external public opinion, the negotiations for the transfer of Jianlibao's equity to the Singapore company could only be terminated. This requires finding domestic companies to buy Jianlibao. On January 15, 2002, Zhejiang SDIC acquired a 75% stake in Jianlibao for 338 million yuan. Since then, Jianlibao has changed shareholders, and its chairman has also changed from Li Jingwei to Zhang Hai.
For this equity transfer price, the industry commented that it is too low, and the actual value of Jianlibao is far more than this number, so that Jianlibao is sold cheaply. At this point, everything is irretrievable, only the change of ownership of Jianlibao, can make it develop rapidly, is the most important.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="89" > Jianlibao changed hands and still performed poorly</h1>
After Jianlibao changed its new owner, its name also changed, and the three words "season five" replaced the golden signboard of "Jianlibao", unfortunately, consumers did not recognize the new name, even if its marketing team quickly increased from more than 500 people to more than 6,000 people, the performance of the new brand is still not good.
As a result, Zhang Hai spent a lot of money on advertising in the media to create a "fifth season" brand, which really worked well and got a lot of orders, but because of the problems in the supply chain of Jianlibao Factory, dealers in many places could not pick up the goods as expected, so the sales of the products were affected again. In July 2004, during this peak beverage sales season, Jianlibao's sales target was originally 300 million yuan, but it was actually only 100 million yuan.
By the end of 2004, Jianlibao had been in debt of 3 billion yuan, and suppliers who came to ask for payment gathered in front of Sanshui Jianlibao Factory and Guangzhou headquarters, and it was not long before Jianlibao was forced to stop production.
In October 2005, Taiwan Unification Group acquired Jianlibao and officially entered in 2007. In the following 8 years, Jianlibao's performance was still unsatisfactory, with annual operating income of only 1.8 billion yuan at the highest, and only 1/3 of the peak period. Jianlibao, which was once brilliant, after several changes of ownership, failed to recover it from the brink of decline to normal levels.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="94" > go home again</h1>
For Jianlibao, which has been developing without hesitation, the Unification Group decided to sell it, and in 2016 transferred all the shares to Jianlibao Group for 950 million yuan. After 10 years of being sold, Jianlibao returned to the hands of "relatives", but its founder could not wait for this day, and Li Jingwei died of illness in 2013. What is the fate of Jianlibao, which was once known as the first beverage brand in China, to meet it?
In 2019, this long-forgotten brand has once again been paid attention to, because Jianlibao has begun to carry out joint-stock system transformation to prepare for listing.
As the founders of Jianlibao and their management team, they have made indelible contributions to the development and rise of Jianlibao, but in the infighting between corporate shareholders and corporate management teams, beverage giant companies have gradually eclipsed and then rapidly declined. Nowadays, Jianlibao has embarked on the road to rejuvenation and hopes to see its rise again as soon as possible.