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Text/Lei Jianping
Source/Lei Di (ID: touchweb)
the river is long and tempestuous, it was like a hero.
Recently, there have been turmoil in Gome. It was just revealed that Gome was filed for bankruptcy and liquidation by the court because it defaulted on payment to suppliers, and it was also revealed that Gome founder Huang Guangyu had a physical conflict with employees.
This makes people feel like a world away, and people who have experienced the Gome era sigh—is this the home appliance retail overlord who kicked Suning, punched Gree, and shouted “Gome, life is beautiful”.
At that time, Gome was also a high-quality listed company, but now it is at odds with each other, it is close to bankruptcy, the stock price is less than one or two cents, and even employees cannot pay wages. This is unacceptable and extremely angry for Gome employees.
The core reason for the conflict between Gome’s top management and employees this time is that Gome’s low-level employees may not only lose their wages, but even their salaries will not be returned. Therefore, a large number of employees asked for their salaries at the Pengrun Building, the headquarters of Gome, and Huang Guangyu talked with the employees on the spot, calling on the employees to understand the difficulties of the company.
Huang GuangyuCompared with more than ten years ago, the recent Huang Guangyu is a little fatter, showing a relative gentleness. Back then, Huang Guangyu even had a bandit spirit.
As early as the end of October 2022, Huang Xiuhong, chairman of Gome Electric, revealed that the company will only provide social security for employees by the end of December, and will not pay wages again, and there will be uncertainties in the payment of medium and long-term wages in the future.
Huang Xiuhong also criticized the recent work attitude of the employees, thinking that everyone lacks a big picture and should not count gains and losses in difficult times, and advance and retreat with the company.
On November 23, 2022, Huang Guangyu had just reduced his holdings of 69 million shares of Gome Retail, with an average price of HK$0.118, and cashed out HK$8.14 million. Huang Guangyu’s shareholding dropped from 34.07% to 33.88%. Since 2022, Huang Guangyu’s family has continuously reduced their holdings of Gome Retail, with a cumulative cash of about 1 billion Hong Kong dollars.
On the one hand, the employees are unable to pay wages, and on the other hand, it is the major shareholders who are cashing out on a large scale. This makes Gome’s employees think.
This is in stark contrast to JD.com. Recently, Liu Qiangdong, CEO of Jingdong Group, stated in an email to all employees that the treatment of employees and executives should be “upgraded and lowered”: the salary of the senior management team will be reduced, and the treatment of grassroots employees will be improved at the same time, and the employees of Debon will be fully paid. Five insurances and one housing fund.
Ten years of vicissitudes
Gome founder Huang Guangyu is also a legend.
In the early years, Huang Guangyu, who went northward with 4,000 yuan in search of business opportunities, founded Gome in Beijing, and gradually opened up the market with “small profits but quick turnover”, which was called “price butcher” by the industry.
Huang Guangyu once established the largest home appliance chain empire in China, successively included Yongle, Sanlian, and Dazhong, and became a well-deserved overlord. Among them, in December 2007, Gome acquired Dazhong Electric for 3.65 billion yuan. There is another story about Gome’s acquisition of Dazhong Electric, that is, the son of Zhang Dazhong, the founder of Dazhong Electric, was unwilling to take over and had no choice but to sell it to Gome.
In the days when the United States attacked the city, Huang Guangyu’s wealth increased sharply.
In 2004, Huang Guangyu became the richest man in China with a net worth of 10.2 billion. In 2005 and 2008, Huang Guangyu topped the Hurun Rich List twice and was the richest man in China.
At that time, Gome and Suning were competing with each other, and JD.com was still the younger brother. Huang Guangyu even shaved his head, which made people feel a bit of banditry.
Unfortunately, in 2008, Huang Guangyu was imprisoned, and the whole company began to decline. In 2010, Huang Guangyu was sentenced for bribery and insider trading, and then served his sentence in Beijing No. 2 Prison. On June 24, 2020, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court ruled that Huang Guangyu be released on parole in accordance with the law based on the report of the penalty enforcement agency.
In the past ten years, there have been tremendous changes like vicissitudes of life. Gome is in decline and has become the younger brother of JD.com and Pinduoduo.
When Huang Guangyu was released from prison, Suning founder Zhang Jindong was already in trouble. At that time, after Suning.com sold its stake in Ali, due to the disorderly expansion of diversification and the epidemic, its debts were overwhelmed.
To make matters worse, after Zhang Jindong and Xu Jiayin, the founder of Evergrande, had a cup of wine, Suning invested 20 billion yuan strategically in Evergrande through its wholly-owned subsidiary “Nanjing Runheng”. With Evergrande’s huge financial pressure, Suning’s investment has not been recovered for a long time, which further exacerbated the tension in Suning.com’s capital chain.
In the end, it was Jiangsu Province and Ali who helped Zhang Jindong clean up the mess. In July 2021, Suning.com announced that Zhang Jindong and his concerted parties transferred 16.96% of the listed company’s total share capital to Jiangsu Xinxin Retail Innovation Fund Phase II (Limited Partnership).
Zhang Jindong also paid the price, not only losing his position as a major shareholder, but also stepping down as the chairman of Suning. In July 2021, the Suning Tesco meeting elected Huang Mingduan, the former chairman of Sun Art Retail, as the chairman.
At that time, many netizens were still lamenting that Zhang Jindong had been tossing for several years and returned to the past overnight. Huang Guangyu is in prison, but Gome has been operating steadily, and such a big turmoil has been avoided.
After Huang Guangyu was released from prison, some people were very optimistic about him for a time. Huang Guangyu also recruited a large number of troops and wanted to reorganize the old rivers and mountains. Who would have thought that after working in a hurry for two years, the company was almost bankrupt. With his former opponent, Zhang Jindong became another suffering brother, even worse than Zhang Jindong.
The financial report shows that Gome Retail’s revenue in the first half of 2022 was 12.1 billion, a decrease of 53.53% from 26.04 billion in the same period last year; the net loss attributable to the company was 2.966 billion, compared with 1.974 billion in the same period last year.
Recently, Gome released a performance forecast. It is expected that the loss in 2022 will increase by 35% to 65% year-on-year; as of September 30, 2022, the group’s overdue loans will be about 3 billion.
The real economy has been devastated by the epidemic
In August 2022, Huang Guangyu issued a letter to friends in Gome, saying that in the past three years, the real economy and offline retail service industry have indeed encountered severe impacts and challenges. The result under the influence of many factors such as the epidemic and the epidemic is also a microcosm of the market. As far as Gome is concerned, it needs to face reality and face survival.
Therefore, Gome has entered a strategic focus and hibernation to survive this cold winter. After going through the storm, I know that only when I get it back can I get it out. “It’s rough and hard, and we know how to change. At difficult times, none of us should laugh, ridicule or even gloat over the downfall of any company. Of course, I hope everything will be fine, and I believe that everything will be fine, but it is still We need more tolerance and support from everyone, and we need to give the company more time and space.”
Huang Guangyu said that Gome retail should be dormant now: strategic focus. Focus, focus, focus, dormant, dormant, dormant again. Huang Guangyu said that this is phased and strategic. As a listed company, it should return to fundamental performance orientation and corporate social responsibility. At present, Gome Retail will focus on its main business, get rid of the burden, and travel lightly.
Therefore, Gome will focus the business of Gome Retail, a listed company, on the retailing of electrical appliances and consumer electronics products, and form a business model for exhibition (offline boutique experience), sales (online and offline omni-channel self-operated + shared supply chain), family Five main profit models including integrated solutions for electronic products, extended products for pan-home appliances, and value-added services (delivery and installation, after-sales, extended warranty, paid membership management);
At the same time, the above non-related or loss-making businesses will be divested from the listed company, sold or stopped developing; in addition, by closing down low-efficiency stores, opening new large and good stores, and expanding franchise stores, the nationwide store network layout will be fully optimized.
In the past 4 months, the situation in Gome has worsened.
Recently, after the dunning failed, the four suppliers jointly applied to the court for Gome’s bankruptcy liquidation. Gome responded that the company has always been responsible for the difficulties and problems encountered in the company’s operations, and negotiated and resolved them on the premise of fully protecting the rights and interests of all parties, so as to achieve win-win cooperation.
“If consensus cannot be reached through negotiation, it will be resolved through judicial channels. Our company respects the judiciary and abides by the law. We also ask relevant parties to abide by laws and regulations and resolve disputes legally and compliantly.”
Some netizens feel sorry for Huang Guangyu. Huang Guangyu is not like other entrepreneurs who use money to play football, raise stars, buy private jets and other things. The government should support enterprises to tide over the difficulties.
Some netizens also lamented that Gome missed the golden decade of Internet e-commerce, one moment and another. Entrepreneurs’ sense of crisis, sense of the times, and sense of learning are all based on cognition. It is estimated that Huang Guangyu’s mentality is not as comfortable as before.
Others broke the news that Gome’s situation today has a lot to do with Huang Guangyu. After Huang Guangyu personally took charge of Gome, he wanted to make drastic changes, but even the budget of 100,000 yuan had to be approved one by one.
However, Gome’s predicament today is not the predicament encountered by many offline companies. Gome’s employee wages, rent, and supplier payments are all very dependent on cash flow. For such retail enterprises, the impact of the epidemic in the past three years is very fatal. There is only hope that society will emerge from the haze of the epidemic as soon as possible.
This article is reproduced from: https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/csj/2022-12-06/doc-imqmmthc7250393.shtml
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