A generation of heroes has come to a critical moment.
1
Gome , is applied for bankruptcy liquidation ?
Gome has once again become the focus.
On December 1, the news that " Gome Electrical Appliances was filed for bankruptcy liquidation" hit a hot search. When the incident happened suddenly, some friends also came over to ask what was going on. The source of the news is the "Zhongcheng Court Case Center". On November 29, the Central City Court's Weibo account released a message saying that Gome Electrical Appliances Co., Ltd. was filed for bankruptcy liquidation from the Bankruptcy Court of the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court because it owed millions of payments to the supplier and could not repay them after being urged. The court has initiated an examination.
At the same time, Tianyancha data shows that Gome Holding Group Co., Ltd. recently added equity freezing information. The company that equity was executed is Chengdu Liding Yinke Equity Investment Fund Center (Limited Partnership), with a freezing amount of RMB 3.67 million, and the execution court is the Xiaoshan District People's Court of Hangzhou. In addition, Gome Holdings also has one piece of information about the person subject to execution, with the amount of execution exceeding 210 million yuan.
messages come one after another, and people turn their attention to Gome.
Soon, Gome Electrical Appliances responded on December 1 -
As of now, our company (Gome Electrical Appliances Co., Ltd.) and other subsidiaries of Gome Holding Group have not received any legal documents or inquiries made by any judicial authorities regarding the bankruptcy of our company.
Could it be that this news that has been circulating everywhere is actually a rumor? Seeing that he was about to be labeled as a rumor, the Case Center of the Zhongcheng Court also spoke. They said that they were commissioned by four suppliers to mail the bankruptcy liquidation application complete set of materials for Gome Electrical Appliances Co., Ltd. to the bankruptcy liquidation application to the Bankruptcy Court of the First Intermediate People's Court, and also went to the filing window to verify on the spot, confirming that the court has received the materials and is under review - the notice of
should be just a matter of time.
What's more interesting is that the Centre of the Central City Court also specially ordered Gome in its response, telling it not to pretend to be stupid -
Before officially submitting the bankruptcy application materials, it had sent the application materials to Gome through various channels. It should be said that it had fully warned, and Gome was fully aware of this.
After eating melons, many people may be curious about what the origin of , the "Zhongcheng Court Case Center" is? I looked through their official website. The Case Center of the Zhongcheng Academy was established in December 2020. It is an legal service agency , which is engaged in the demonstration and discussion of major difficult and complex cases under the Zhongcheng 10 billion industry research institute. It is headquartered in Beijing.
And Zhongcheng 10 billion Industry Research Institute is a think tank research institution, and Tianyan Check information penetration shows that the controller is Qingkong Aoke (Beijing) Group Co., Ltd. The last time the CITIC Case Center of the Zhongcheng Court came out of the circle was due to the joint suppliers collecting debts from Suning.com and exposed many shocking information. Someone has done statistics. As of now, more than 90% of the important news about the Centre of the Centre Court are related to Suning.com.
In other words, Suning 's "debt collector" began to turn his attention to Gome? This is a bit interesting. Of course, what we are more concerned about is what happened to Gome in ?
2
Down clouds
One thing that needs to be clear is that even if the court initiates the review, it does not mean that Gome will go bankrupt.
According to the analysis of lawyer Zhao Yang of Guangdong Baiying Law Firm, corporate bankruptcy must meet the two basic conditions of insolvency and inability to repay maturing debts.Lawyer Zhao Yang also said that even if it is true that as the Centre of the Case Center of the Central City Court said, Gome’s situation is not optimistic. If the court accepts the bankruptcy liquidation application, Gome may not necessarily go bankrupt-
"Because according to the provisions of the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law, after the court accepts the bankruptcy application and before the debtor is declared bankrupt, the debtor or the investor with certain conditions can apply for reorganization to the court. That is to say, if there is a possibility of reorganization before the bankruptcy declaration, the debtor or the investor with conditions can also apply to the reorganization procedure ."
Despite this, the situation is already serious for Gome. This point of can also be seen from Gome's performance in in the capital market. As of the close of December 2, the stock price of Gome Retail was only HK$0.17 per share, compared with the highest point of HK$2.55 per share after Huang Guangyu's return in February last year -
fell 93%.
Looking inside Gome, there are several dark clouds already covering the sky.
The first weight is layoffs.
About a month ago, Gome founder Huang Guangyu's sister and Gome Electrical Appliances Chairman Huang Xiuhong said at an internal conference--
The company will only provide social security to employees until the end of December and will not pay wages again.
After the meeting, the company also issued a letter of commitment to the employees, and employees can go to the supervisor to sign. In the eyes of some employees, this news is "forced to leave in disguise."
In fact, according to Gome’s interim report, Gome’s employees have decreased from 32,278 at the end of 2021 to 25,701 at the end of June 2022, with a decrease of 6,577 in half a year.
More than the grassroots employees have left. According to incomplete statistics from 36Kr , since July 2021, there have been no less than 10 known "middle and senior management" in Gome. Former Gome Electrical Appliances CEO Wang Wei, Gome Online CEO O Xiang Hailong , and Ding Wei, executive vice president of Zhenh Happy Company, all resigned.
The second level is performance dilemma.
financial report shows that in the first half of 2022, Gome's revenue was 12.109 billion yuan, and fell by 53.46% year-on-year compared with ; net profit loss was 2.966 billion yuan, an increase of 50.24% year-on-year.
Looking at the long run, from 2017 to 2020, Gome's net losses were 450 million yuan, 4.887 billion yuan, 2.590 billion yuan and 6.994 billion yuan respectively. Together with the net losses in 2021, Gome Retail has suffered a total loss in the past five years -
about 19.3 billion yuan. What’s more important is that as of the first half of 2022, Gome’s total liabilities reached 58.567 billion yuan, of which 22.902 billion yuan of bank loans and other loans to be repaid within one year were 22.902 billion yuan. , but the company's cash and cash equivalents during the same period was only 2.409 billion yuan, and the operating activities cash flow only remained 55.35 million yuan during the same period.
The company is short of money, and the external suppliers can only owe money first. Those who can't wait will be sued to court.
The third level is the share reduction storm.
According to statistics from Cailianshe, Huang Guangyu has reduced his holdings at least 15 times this year, and the proportion of holdings in has dropped from 59.94% at the beginning of the year to 33.88%. In recent years, Huang Guangyu and his controlling shareholders have cashed out more than 2 billion yuan by reducing their holdings in Gome Retail.
Various signs have shown that Huang Guangyu's Gome Empire is facing unprecedented challenges.
3
The lost decade
Huang Guangyu's Gome has gone through 35 years.
Huang Guangyu, born in Shantou, Guangdong, can be regarded as a representative of the Chinese business world starting from scratch. He was from a poor family since childhood, and later went north with his brother to work hard and earned his first pot of gold in the electrical appliance sales industry.
On New Year's Day in 1987, Huang Guangyu established the first store in Beijing that mainly operates various household appliances, which is the starting point of Gome. Facing the trend of the times, Huang Guangyu's wealth has accumulated rapidly, and the founding Gome Electrical Appliances has blossomed everywhere and gradually become a household name.
In 2004, Gome successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange through backdoor acquisition, becoming China's first home appliance chain company to be listed overseas.
In 2004, 2005 and 2008, Huang Guangyu won the mainland's richest man on the Hurun Rich List three times, and also ranked first in the Forbes China Rich List in 2006.
▲The top 10 of Hurun China Rich List in 2008
After the peak, it was a low point. In 2008, Huang Guangyu was taken away for investigation. Two years later, the Beijing court sentenced Huang Guangyu to 14 years in prison and fined 800 million yuan for illegal business operations, insider trading, leaking insider information, and bribery by unit.
The generation of heroes fell silent. During his imprisonment, Huang Guangyu actively showed up to seek a reduction in sentence while still controlling Gome. For more than ten years, Huang Guangyu has insisted on contacting Gome's senior management through writing letters, and the implementation of some major decisions often requires his consent.
Until June 24, 2020, Huang Guangyu was paroled by and was officially released on February 16, 2021.
Huang Guangyu's enthusiasm has not diminished. As soon as he was released from prison, he threw a "revival plan" to the market, striving to use 18 months to get Gome back to its peak. The market is very considerate, and Gome Retail's share price once rose to a high of HK$2.55 per share.
But a cruel reality is that in the more than ten years when Huang Guangyu was absent, China's retail industry has experienced earth-shaking changes, and Gome is gradually drifting away from the times.
Before Huang Guangyu was arrested in 2008, Gome had 1,300 stores and annual sales of nearly 50 billion yuan. It is a veritable "No. 1 in the home appliance retail industry". Following closely behind is Suning; Alibaba , JD still cannot be seen.
Look at it again, Alibaba and JD.com, which were unknown at the time, have grown into trillions of dragons. As early as 2019, JD.com accounted for 22.39% of the channels in the entire home appliance industry, Suning 18.09%, and Tmall 11.72%. Gome, the former overlord of the world, had only 4.88% of the channels.
Times changed, and their positions have been exchanged in ten years.
Huang Guangyu also had expectations after his return. According to previous media reports, Huang Guangyu only slept for a few hours a day and worked hard. In terms of company strategy, he carried out a series of drastic changes: Gome APP was renamed " Really Happy ", to make up for the shortcomings of e-commerce; to close about 30% of offline self-operated stores to reduce costs and increase efficiency; stores started live broadcasts and focused on live broadcasts to sell goods...
Unfortunately, the results were very little. Huang Guangyu could only bow his head and admit that "there is a gap between reality and goal."
4
Epilogue
Many things cannot be repeated.
The former richest man Huang Guangyu ranked 663rd with a wealth of 9.5 billion in 2022, and he could not stop loneliness and helplessness.
Speaking of which, someone has understood the truth on this land a long time ago. In China, private entrepreneurs need to go through thousands of tests to become the richest man in order to achieve the position of the richest man -
First, we must handle the relationship with power well.
2 Second, you must always do your homework and understand politics.
3 must bet on all your wealth and bet on the country's destiny.
The first tests people's hearts, the second tests wisdom, and the last tests luck. Nothing can go wrong.
In the past forty years, every copper plate earned by private entrepreneurs has a deep imprint of the times. Once handled inadvertently, it may be a pair of handcuffs or a complaint, and the decades of business empire collapsed and fell.
Wu Xiaobo once mentioned in "The Great Defeat" -
As the creator of the miracle itself, after a stunning spurt, how to try its best to curb its inner irrational impulses, quickly transform, and become a part of the economic ecosystem with a normal attitude and image. This is a return to the mean, but it is also a way to survive for a longer period of time. The sentence
is given to every "Huang Guangyu" in the era.
