With the emergence of a "double subtraction" document, the education and training that almost collapsed has now attracted the increase of the blue cursor of the former "first place in Asia's public relations company".
According to Tianyan, on August 5, BlueFocus (Shanghai) Investment Management Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of BlueFocus, invested in the establishment of an education enterprise, Tianjin BlueFocus Education Technology Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 10 million yuan, and its business scope includes educational consulting services, publication retail, etc.
The information behind the shareholders shows that the company is jointly held by Yu Yang and Blue Label Investment, of which blue label shareholding ratio is 30%.
Founded in 1996, BlueFocus is the earliest public relations company established in China, advertising as "the first public relations company in Asia" and a top 10 marketing communication group. In 2010, Blue Label was listed on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and has been digitally transforming in recent years.
According to the financial report, Blue Label achieved operating income of 40.527 billion yuan in 2020, an increase of 44.19% year-on-year; non-net profit attributable to the mother of 589 million yuan, an increase of 29.79% year-on-year; net operating cash flow increased to 1.310 billion yuan, a substantial increase of 87.38% year-on-year, creating the second best performance in history after 2018.
As such an established company in the marketing industry, why did it suddenly enter the field of education?
01
"Public relations brother" turned into "capital maniac"
In fact, this is not the first investment of the Blue Label, nor is it the first investment in education.
"Blue Label Investment" was established in 2014, the legal representative is Xiong Jian, who entered the Blue Label after graduating from Beihang in 2000. Currently, he serves as Executive Director of Blue Label Investments and Deputy General Manager & Director & Secretary of the Board of Directors of BlueFocus.
The image of blue label as a "public relations brother" has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, but what everyone does not know is that this name has long been unable to interpret today's blue label.
In 2010, the blue label operating income before the listing was less than 400 million, and in 2020, the blue label revenue exceeded 40 billion, achieving a 100-fold growth rate, and the compound growth rate exceeded 55%, ranking the top three of all listed companies on the ChiNext board. This came as a surprise to many people.
After all, as a standard service industry in the field of advertising and marketing, it is obviously affected by external factors. Whether it is economic fluctuations or the loss of large customers, it will bring huge operational fluctuations, and there are very few companies that can cross the cycle, and even fewer companies that can continue to grow. In this way, what is the secret behind the rapid growth of blue labels all year round?
Since its listing in 2010, Blue Label has embarked on the road of acquisition and expansion, constantly acquiring and expanding in China and overseas, it can be said that Blue Label is like a crazy super capital acquisition machine.
According to incomplete statistics, since its listing, Blue Label has acquired more than 10 domestic companies and 9 international companies, covering digital marketing, advertising, advertising technology, e-commerce and other fields. Among them, the large-scale investment includes the acquisition of Tibet Bojie, which owns CCTV advertising resources for 1.78 billion yuan, and the acquisition of Duomeng and Yidong, the two largest companies in the mobile advertising industry.
Regarding mergers and acquisitions and international layout, Zheng Hong, president of the international business of Blue Label Group, said in an interview that the group should "walk on two legs": one is investment and mergers, and the other is to truly drive the development and synergy of the business.
The investment actions of BlueFocus are mainly completed by BlueFocus (Shanghai) Investment Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "BlueFocus"), a wholly-owned subsidiary.
According to it Orange data, blue label investment layout of enterprises include Chengchang Technology, Miaobi Intelligence, Haidao Education, Jingzan Technology, Interface News and so on. Among them, Haidao Education focuses on education on the sea track, providing diversified and high-quality academic counseling, research and examination studies, and career planning and training services. In 2018, it received the Blue Focus Angel Round.
02
Do lp set up an industrial fund, grasp both hands to be hard
Tianyan check shows that behind a number of star institutions in the market, there are actually blue cursor figures, including Zhen Fund, Gaorong Capital, iResearch Assets, Hongtai Venture Capital, Blueprint Venture Capital, etc.
In December 2020, BlueFocus announced that in order to deepen the company's future strategic layout and invest in potential enterprises related to the company's industrial chain, its wholly-owned subsidiary "Blue Label Investment" intends to participate in the establishment of Xiamen Blueprint Haixing Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) (hereinafter referred to as "Blueprint Haixing Fund") with its own funds of RMB 100 million.
It is understood that Blue Label Investment will mainly invest in high-tech, new consumption and other fields in the future, including advanced manufacturing, Internet, information technology, artificial intelligence, big data, new consumption, education, enterprise services and other industries. Among them, the proposed subscribed capital contribution is RMB100 million, accounting for 48.78% of the total subscribed capital contribution of blueprint Haixing Fund;
In addition, at the beginning of 2021, BlueFocus announced that its subsidiary BlueBrand Investment intends to increase the capital of Hainan Yunwei Industrial Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hainan Yunwai") with its own funds of 130 million yuan, and after the completion of the capital increase, BlueFocus will acquire 20% of the equity of Hainan Yunwei.
According to the data, Hainan Yunwei was established in 2020 and is headquartered in Hainan, with high-quality operating resources in the duty-free industry and domestic and international supply chain resources. With this investment, BlueFocus will give full play to the marketing capabilities of the full link, coordinate with the omni-channel integration capabilities of cross-border e-commerce, build an online and offline integrated omni-channel retail system, and empower the Hainan Cloud Free New Retail Model with "technology + marketing + tax-free resources".
Zhao Wenquan, chairman of BlueFocus, said, "The cooperation between BlueFocus and Hainan Yunwei will not only jointly explore the digitization and intelligence of duty-free new retail and cross-border e-commerce, bring model innovation and experience upgrades to consumers, but also further promote the development of bluefocus marketing intelligence, from the promotion of integrated marketing to the establishment of association with the final sales results, further build BlueFocus's powerful service capabilities, and broaden the company's profit model." ”
In addition, it is worth mentioning that Zhao Wenquan is also the chairman of the Blueprint Venture Capital Investment Committee. Founded in 2016, Blueprint Ventures focuses on high-tech and new consumer investment, with VC funds focusing on the early stage and growth stage, and currently has assets under management of more than 2 billion yuan.
03
Launching a university, cutting into vocational education Blue Label wants to fight an education turnaround battle?
This time, Blue Label invested in the establishment of an education enterprise, which aroused market attention, in fact, it was still in the time node.
It should be known that after the "Opinions on Further Reducing the Homework Burden and Off-campus Training Burden of Students in the Compulsory Education Stage" issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council on July 24, the education market caused a violent earthquake, and both enterprises and investment institutions could be described as a wailing.
Not only New Oriental, Good Future, Gaotu, NetEase Youdao, 51talk, Zhangmen Education, Together Education, Elite Education, Hong En Education, Dane Education and other Chinese stock education stocks collectively fell. At the same time, the primary market situation is not optimistic, and many institutional investments have been wasted, and even have expressed their desire to escape education.
Under the pressure of the "double reduction" policy, in order to "reduce the value of harm", many discipline training institutions have begun to transform, especially with diversified business comprehensive companies, such as New Oriental, Good Future, Ape Counseling, Qingbei Online School, Xueda Education, etc. Just one day before the press release, on August 12, New Oriental officially launched the "High-quality Parent Wisdom Museum" to transform and train parents.
Indeed, after the implementation of the policy, the transformation of the education and training industry is imminent, in addition to quality education, many education and training institutions have focused on adult education and vocational education.
In fact, the business scope of the enterprise established by Blue Label Investment mainly includes: software development; technical services; business training (excluding education and training, vocational skills training and other training that requires permission); data services; enterprise management consulting; education consulting services (excluding education and training activities involving license approval); etiquette services; conference and exhibition services; and organizing cultural and artistic exchange activities. To a large extent, the route to be taken in the future may be vocational education.
As early as March 2020, BlueFocus announced the launch of "Blue Label University", officially entering online education and vocational training.
According to reports, Blue Label University is positioned as an "exclusive online university for marketers", with four colleges under it, namely the Newcomer College, the Expert College, the Elite College, and the Master College, providing full-career education and training services for marketing practitioners. Among them, the Newcomer College opens nine online course modules for zero-based students who are interested in entering the marketing to find jobs and internships, providing zero-based courses and teaching services for college graduates.
At that time, Zhao Wenquan, chairman and CEO of Blue Label Group, said that the frequency of updates and subversions in the marketing industry is getting higher and higher, and every marketer needs lifelong learning to launch Blue Label University.
So, is vocational education a good business?
An investor familiar with vocational education told reporters that at present, the traditional vocational education and training model has approached the Red Sea, and the most typical public service training tracks such as public examinations and teaching materials are lined with giants. However, the current vocational education system in China cannot meet the needs of development.
Capital is always at the forefront of the outlet. From the capital level, the education market in the past two years has been quite volatile.
From the perspective of the past decade, 2016 is the peak period of investment and financing in the education industry, with the number of investment and financing events reaching 723 in the whole year, and the capital is frantically pouring in. This was followed by nearly three years of boom. In 2019, the number of investment and financing events in the education industry dropped significantly, with only 394 cases. In 2020, the epidemic broke out, and the education industry, which was originally cold, fell to the freezing point under the impact, with only 244 investment and financing events in the whole year, down about 38% compared with 2019, and about 66% down from the peak of 2016.
2010-2021 education industry investment and financing statistics | data source: it orange
Interestingly, though, in 2020, the capital market is feverish for the education sector, but almost every month there are vocational education institutions receiving financing. From March to May, the amount of financing in the field of vocational education climbed month by month, increasing by 29 times in April, and again increased by 73% on this basis in May. Coupled with the fact that the Ministry of Education has issued relevant enrollment expansion policies many times, vocational education seems to be gaining momentum. Since then, in August, September, October and December, the number of investments in vocational education tracks has exceeded 4 per month.
Today, with the introduction of the double reduction policy, it is almost certain that the country will return education to the main position of the campus. With the transformation of China's economic results and the continuous optimization of the industrial structure, the demand for skilled and compound talents continues to increase, and more and more people choose vocational education to improve their ability level. The natural scale of the vocational education industry continues to expand, especially online vocational education, which is being recognized by more and more people with the advantages of controllable time, high cost performance and diversified courses.
An early investor in the field of education told reporters that under the drive of policy, the transformation and upgrading of the education industry will inevitably produce structural changes. Combined with the key work of the 14th Five-Year Plan, the biggest opportunities for future education will be mainly concentrated in the three fields of education informatization, quality education and vocational education.
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