(Source: CCTV News Materials)
The author | Wang Hongchen
Source| Mustang Finance
Recently, Mustang Finance obtained an internal speech by Zhang Jin, chairman of the board of directors of Cedar Holdings, from a reliable channel at the "First Phase of Cedar Cadre Training Camp". The helmsman of the world's Top 500 "upstart" used the "Book of Ten Thousand Words" to rarely disclose to many core executives the concerns, disputes, reasons and many other sensitive topics in the process of acquiring the assets of the "Tomorrow System", and at the same time disclosed the arduous process of the past two decades of entrepreneurship.
"Cedar does not fall from the sky" Zhang Jin promised to use openness and honesty to let the public go from "knowing cedar" to "understanding cedar".
Screenshot of the speech of the first phase of the Cedar Cadre Training Camp
As the "first private enterprise in Guangzhou", Cedar Holding Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Cedar Holdings") does not have a high exposure to the outside world.
In fact, at present, it has six major industrial groups, as well as two listed companies, Qi Xiang Tengda (002408.sz) and 002485.sz. In 2018, Cedar Holdings ranked 361st among the world's top 500 for the first time, and is the only Fortune Global 500 private enterprise that has grown up in Guangzhou.
Winning the "Mother of Licenses" is crucial
Zhang Jin first reported a "milestone event" internally: "After four months of penetrating and strict review by the CBIRC, we have obtained the approval of the CBIRC to acquire 71.3005% of the shares of China River Trust. ”
According to the announcement of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, Cedar Holdings was transferred to 71.3005% of the equity of China River Trust held by four "tomorrow" shell companies, including Lingrui Asset Management, Dalian Renego, Tianjin Hansheng Tongchuang and Shenzhen Zhenhuili. After the completion of the equity change, Cedar Holdings will become the largest shareholder of China River Trust.
Image source: official website of the Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission
The CBIRC requires Cedar Holdings to transfer its equity in China River Trust with its own funds. According to Mustang Finance, the transaction price of this acquisition will be more than 10 billion yuan.
The disposal of assets in the "Tomorrow System" has always been a hot topic in the market. Therefore, at the beginning of participating in the bidding for China River Trust, the outside world's doubts about Cedar Holdings followed. This is a new test for Cedar Holdings, which is not highly exposed.
In this regard, Zhang Song is also very entangled, "First, the price is not cheap, which will bring financial pressure to the enterprise in the short term; second, we still have insufficient financial talents and project reserves." However, after entanglement, Zhang Jin still made up his mind to take this trust license, which is known as the "mother of licenses".
"If you want to become a truly global top comprehensive industrial group, you must have a financial sector as a support, and you need to have a mainstream financial license as soon as possible." Zhang Jin said.
Is it worth it to spend so much effort to fight for a license plate? What does finance mean to Cedar?
These problems are not only controversial in the market, but also different voices within Cedar, such as "the current situation is financial deleveraging, and financial licenses have entered the depreciation track, which may not play much role as we think." ”
Zhang Jin said bluntly, "I respect this opinion, and I also agree with the state's policy of deleveraging and risk reduction, but I see a more critical and more essential point: 'financial strong supervision' is the basic direction of our economic policy, which will not change for a long, long time." However, "finance is the foundation of a country's economy, and only control can bring security." The important way of financial supervision is to control the license, and strong supervision inevitably means that the license is limited. ”
Therefore, Zhang Jin pointed out that doing business needs to judge the hour and size up the situation, but at the critical moment, it is more necessary to reverse thinking. In "I don't shoot when others are competing for the best, and when people feel that the license plate has entered the depreciation track, we can start to layout." ”
It is based on this concept that Zhang Jin strengthened his confidence in acquiring Zhongjiang Trust.
Image source: Cedar Cadre Training Camp Phase I Speech
Now that the trust license is finally in his hands, Zhang Jin stressed that "our original intention of adhering to the industry remains unchanged, our ambition to serve the country in industry remains unchanged, and the direction of our use of financial resources to serve the real economy remains unchanged." "In terms of operation, Cedar Holdings still only believes in three elements: cash flow, industrial value and industrial profit."
Zhang Jinchang said that the core competitiveness of Cedar Holdings comes from two genes: industrial genes and financial genes. Whether it is the leapfrog development of Cedar Industry or the steady progress of major industries, it is inseparable from finance.
At this point, Cedar Holdings seems to be able to let go of its hands and feet and show its skills in the financial field. However, Zhang Jin made an unexpected decision at this time.
"Using other people's doubts as a spur"
On New Year's Day 2019, Cedar Holdings released a new strategic goal of the Five-Year Plan (2017-2021): to reconstruct the four major industries, focus on the development of the fifth sector of social welfare service industry, and reconstruct and integrate the six major industries into five major industries. In the process of changing the "Big Six" into the "Big Five", a major sector that disappeared was finance.
"Why is finance gone, is it less important, or is it deliberately hidden?"
In the face of doubts, Zhang Jin said bluntly: "The financial industry does not appear in the form of independent plates, which does not mean that the financial business will weaken, and its importance in the cedar industry system is more prominent." He wants to fully integrate financial business into various industrial sectors, "turn tangible into intangible", and integrate into new strategic goals.
Zhang Jin introduced the internal logical relationship of the company's "1-2-3-4-5" strategic goal, that is, to establish a world-class comprehensive industrial group, serve 200 million people, connect 30,000 enterprises, reconstruct four major industries, and focus on the development of the fifth sector of social welfare service industry.
For companies that "suddenly" have such grand strategic goals, external doubts are inevitable. Although Cedar Holdings has also unveiled its veil in recent years, the pressure of public opinion has continued unabated. Zhang Jin mentioned that some media have questioned Cedar Holdings, like CEFC, by doing high sales to obtain financing.
Will Cedar Holdings follow CEFC's old path? Zhang Jin then responded positively in an internal speech that Cedar and CEFC took completely different paths. He disclosed that before the acquisition of listed companies in 2016, Cedar Holdings' debt ratio had been maintained within 20%. Moreover, the supply of tongyun basically relies on the group's blood transfusion and its own operation to develop, and the amount of financing is very small. Because Supplycom Cloud is facing a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises and end users, "unlike the counterparties of central enterprises and state-owned enterprises that financial institutions prefer", "we can hardly raise funds, so the so-called false trade volume has no meaning for us." Even so, Supplycom Cloud still generates a lot of profits every year through integrated supply chain services and high-frequency transactions. In such a difficult year of 2018, the entire group still has nearly 6 billion after-tax profits. ”
In his speech, Zhang Jin said bluntly: "In my opinion, we must have a pattern and mind to accept questions. First of all, we must seriously self-reflect; then there is the 'crown is worn, and it must bear its weight'; generations have proved that innovation is to be a minority. In fact, it is not only Cedar that is suspected, suspected, and questioned, but also the forerunners, innovators, and minorities, which is a necessary process of growth." Over the past 100 years, many predictions that mock innovative things have been slapped in the face, and many great companies have not been recognized in the first place. ”
Zhang Jin gave the example of Apple. When Jobs released his first iPhone in 2007, the outlook was bleak in the eyes of many critics, including business leaders. As a result, Apple used actual performance to punch the so-called business leaders in the face.
Zhang Jin also gave the example of Cadillac, and quoted the sentence in Cadillac's classic advertisement "Punishment for Leaders" released in 1915, "In every field of human progress, those who are in the leading position must always live in the focus of public attention." Once he gets ahead, imitation, catch-up, and jealousy will follow."
"The brand is also our productivity, in the future we must be more public, transparent, to use our development strength, with our openness and frankness, let the public, let the media from 'know the cedar' to 'understand the cedar'." Zhang Jin said.
To this end, Zhang Jin disclosed his entrepreneurial journey in detail for the first time, and took the initiative to uncover the so-called "mysterious" background of Cedar Holdings.
"Cedar didn't fall from the sky"
In response to the sudden rise of Cedar, there is also a lot of speculation from the outside, Zhang Jin responded to this question in an internal speech. "Many people have a misunderstanding of cedar, thinking that it is newly emerged, and always feel unbelievable. In fact, the cedar did not fall from the sky, the cedar was spelled out after nine deaths and decades! When looking back on the entrepreneurial process, Zhang Jin was straight to the point.
Zhang Jin's first bucket of gold came from the stock market. Before the establishment of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Zhang Jin, who was studying at a university in Shenzhen, bought many kinds of internal stocks that were widely considered "unreliable" at the time. According to his recollection, most of the internal stocks bought at that time have become waste paper, and there are still many certificates of the time in hand. Fortunately, he persevered, and some of the internal stocks in his hands were successfully listed, covering the losses. Later, he also entered the secondary market and lost a lot.
In 1997, Zhang Jin, who was studying at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, was encouraged by his mentor to return to the mainland to establish Meritus Group (the predecessor of Cedar Holdings) and enter the real estate industry. Seeing the wind direction of the policy and seizing the wind outlet of the start of the real estate industry, Zhang Jin's entrepreneurship chose a sunshine track, but it did not mean that he could succeed easily.
The first project to be taken over after the establishment was the famous rotten tail building in Guangzhou, which combined the characteristics of almost all the rotten tail buildings such as property rights problems, debt problems, and engineering problems.
"I had just returned to Guangzhou at that time, and in order to solve the problem, I took Director Chen Limin to run to the government office every day, find leaders, send materials, reason, and grind my lips. Our present slogan, which makes the impossible possible, came from that time. ”
What still makes Zhang Jin feel uncomfortable is that because of the debt problem left over from the history of the rotten building, his mother was taken directly to the court by law enforcement officers when she went to see him at the construction site. At that time, he saw his mother suffer this grievance, and he burst into tears.
In order to familiarize himself with the real estate business, he has been staring at the construction site for more than two years, often leaving the construction site for several months. Once, in order to understand the pouring process of cement and soil when capping, Zhang Jin climbed the mountain pipe and fell down from the third floor, fortunately, the middle was blocked by the mountain pipe, but the knee was still seriously injured, and the crutch for half a year went to work, and his right knee was seriously damaged so far.
After the house was built, the situation should have been very good, but because the community style was not welcomed by the market, the surrounding supporting facilities were not perfect, and for a long time a suite could not be sold, but opened the "darkest moment" of Zhang Jin's life.
"From the beginning when the land use procedures could not be done, to the subsequent project progress was not smooth, the problems were endless, and the house could not be sold for a long time after it was built, that period of time was really the darkest moment of my life!" I was so anxious that I couldn't sleep all night, and I had to drink a whole bottle of red wine and sleeping pills to barely fall asleep, and I still have severe sleep disorders, and that's when I started. Zhang Jin said.
After stumbling and standing on the heel of real estate, Zhang Jin found that there was a shortage of steel at that time, and the profit margin of construction raw materials was very large, so he tried to enter the field of bulk commodities and began to engage in metal futures and international trade.
It turned out that the suffering in this industry was worse than that of the real estate industry.
For example, in 2004, Zhang Jin invested in a smelter in Guangxi, was defrauded of hundreds of millions of dollars, and almost all of his working capital was cheated away. At that time, "just to repay the loan, in order to repay the loan, borrow money everywhere, how high the interest rate is, even the parents' pension savings have been cheated out." By borrowing usury and returning real estate, we struggled to survive. ”
"Entrepreneurship nine deaths, life cold and warm self-knowledge", looking back on the past, Zhang Jin said, "From the outside world, all you see are the highlight moments and scenery moments of the enterprise, but who can notice the darkest moments behind this, even the desperate moments?" In fact, the big private entrepreneurs are almost the same, on the surface it looks like a beautiful scenery, but how many unknown nights can not sleep, how many times in the middle of the night flashed the idea of jumping off the roof. ”
"Holding on is everything!" In Zhang Jin's view, Cedar Holdings can get to today, "is nothing more than to conform to the general trend, try to persevere, and add a little luck." ”
After experiencing the test of "nine deaths and a lifetime", Zhang Jin has a clear idea of the development path of Cedar Holdings, which is what he calls the "watertight cabin" model: there is a strict separation between major industries, even if the economic cycle fluctuates, one or two encounter difficulties, other industries can also hedge risks, will not affect the steady development of the entire enterprise.
In the investment experience of Cedar Holdings, there have been new projects like Dabai Butler and Hippo Yunqi, which have been withdrawn. In the "watertight cabin" model, these failed projects did not affect the development of the company as a whole.
Today, Cedar Holdings has crossed the road. Where do you think the future of Cedar Holdings will go? Feel free to leave a message in the comments section.