On June 29, 2019, Wang Zhenhua, chairman of Seazen Holdings, was involved in a public controversy due to a suspected child molestation case. On June 17 this year, the Putuo District People's Court of Shanghai issued a first-instance verdict on the case: Wang Zhenhua was sentenced to five years in prison.
The prosperity of the real estate market in southern Jiangsu since the 1990s, as well as the special zoning space setting in his hometown of Wujin, have made Wang Zhenhua's wealth legend possible. However, his moral values and lifestyle did not match his wealth growth. Wang Zhenhua's bizarre personal ups and downs were inevitable by accident, and the complexity far exceeded what could be covered in a single lawsuit.
Text | Liu Yi
A fact full of dark humor is: Even though Xincheng Holdings’ annual real estate contract sales volume has ranked among the top ten in the country in 2018, few employees can definitely say the name "Xincheng" Where does it come from. Even in Wujin, Changzhou, Wang Zhenhua’s hometown and the place where his career started.
Drive south from Changzhou Railway Station for 8 kilometers. Between the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal and Changzhou University Town, has a radius of less than 3 kilometers. There are more than 20 residential properties and commercial properties developed by Xincheng Holdings.
A local middle class who pursues quality of life can choose to buy a home with the prefix "Xincheng" at a price ranging from 10,000 yuan to 25,000 yuan per square meter. "Yue Plaza" dining and shopping, and entertaining visitors at the international brand five-star hotels franchised by Xincheng Holdings.
Sometimes, there will even be notices or notices signed "New City Police Station" on the streets - this "New City" certainly cannot be confused with the real estate kingdom founded by Wang Zhenhua. But when a person is suddenly in a space with such a strong brand color of "New City", he can hardly distinguish whether "New City" is a neutral geographical concept or the name of the real estate giant.
"I guess Wang Zhenhua himself no longer likes to mention the origin of the name 'Xincheng'. Younger locals can't tell whether the Xincheng real estate came first or the place name 'Xincheng' came first." He is over sixty years old. Xu Ming said with a smile. Before retiring, he worked in the People's Government of Hutang Town, Wujin District for more than 20 years. "New City is actually the abbreviation of 'Wujin New City', which is a concept proposed by the original Wujin County Government in 1993."
In the summer of 1993, Wujin County under the leadership of the Changzhou Municipal People's Government moved the county government headquarters to the county. Hutang Town, and immediately proposed to build a new urban area here. Xu Ming recalled: “At that time, it was determined that Wujin would be removed from the county and established as a city (a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Changzhou) in 1995. For the Wujin County Government, planning a new urban layout with Hutang Town as the center was a top priority. In my impression, Wang Zhenhua's real estate company first wore the "hat" of a town-run collective enterprise; the name "New Town" was chosen to correspond to the new urban planning project proposed by the county government. should be called "New Town" as an enterprise. , ever since it was named, it has been riding the coattails of government land development ”
Xincheng Holdings Shanghai Headquarters (photographed on July 11, 2019) (Photo | Visual China)
July 2, 1993. Wujin New City Development Investment and Construction Co., Ltd., which Wang Zhenhua said "initially had only five people and three rooms," was registered in Hutang Town; 10 days later, Wujin County Government officially moved to a new location in the center of Hutang Town. Starting from Hutang Town, Wang Zhenhua's "New City" moved from Wujin to Changzhou, and from Changzhou to Shanghai. In more than 20 years, it has developed into a total assets of more than 470 billion yuan, with three listed companies (A-share listed companies New City Holdings and Hong Kong Stock Exchange). Wealth Kingdom, with its listed companies New City Development and New City Joy as its core, has developed or completed more than 500 real estate projects in 119 large and medium-sized cities in China. He himself also accumulated considerable public honor and social status, and was once regarded as a leading figure among entrepreneurs in southern Jiangsu in the early 21st century.
But this all came to an abrupt end in the summer of 2019. On July 3 of that year, the Shanghai police confirmed that Wang Zhenhua had been subject to coercive measures for allegedly molesting a 9-year-old girl in a hotel on Wanhangdu Road on June 29.On July 10, the Putuo District People’s Procuratorate of Shanghai approved the arrest of Wang Zhenhua and his accomplice Zhou Yanfen in accordance with the law on suspicion of child molestation. On June 17, 2020, the Putuo District People's Court sentenced Wang Zhenhua to 5 years in prison and Zhou Yanfen to 4 years in prison.
Nearly two months have passed since the first-instance verdict of the Wang Zhenhua case was announced. In Wujin, a city with dense "new city system" real estate projects, people are still willing to tell all kinds of indistinguishable stories about this "big man" to every outsider. . One year after Wang Xiaosong, the eldest son of the "post-85s generation" took over the real estate empire he left behind, it has passed the initial crisis period and the stock price has returned to a stable range.
However, only after entering Hutang Town, Wujin District, a space named after the new city real estate, can the particularity of Wang Zhenhua's past experience be fully revealed - from the place of birth to the school he attended, and from the textile factory where he first held a leadership position. Until the first residential building he undertook to build, Wang Zhenhua’s life before the age of 33 was basically spent within a radius of less than 3 kilometers in Hutang Town. Zhou Yanfen, another important party in the molestation case of girls, was also born in this area, and met and established a relationship with Wang Zhenhua here.
Even after Xincheng Real Estate’s project construction scope has expanded to Changzhou urban area and even the entire East China, the “inner circle” of Hutang still constitutes Wang Zhenhua’s business base and strategic “base camp”. carries far more than the local friendship of a wealthy businessman.
In the "inner circle" of this space, Wang Zhenhua's business philosophy and way of doing things were born. In the early days of reform and opening up, the blurred "public" and "private" boundaries of township enterprises in southern Jiangsu, the transfer of property rights that turned public into private, and the "revolving door" of personnel movement between government agencies and enterprises... all of this is in the "inner circle." Happened calmly. is also rapidly expanding, as are personal desires that were once wrapped and obscured by the network of people in the "inner circle."
Wang Zhenhua, who has settled in Shanghai, a place in the "outer circle" and has permanent residency in Canada, still maintains an unusual personal relationship with Zhou Yanfen, a woman from the same country he met during the "inner circle" era. The latter's behavior of searching for girls from his private social circle eventually caused great harm to the two young girls and their families, and Zhou and Wang were also subject to the ensuing legal sanctions. But this will not be the last story about the secretive "inner circle": the "inner circle" never sleeps, just like wealth never sleeps.
Hutang Bridge "Capable Man"
"This river was dug out by the strong laborers of various brigade organized in the commune one year before Chairman Mao's death. I remember the eldest son of Wang Sanda (father of Wang Zhenhua) and Both sons have participated in labor." On the bank of the Hutang River adjacent to Wanli Community, Wang Zhenhua's childhood neighbor Lao Lu pointed to the calm water and talked, "The terrain of our Hutang Bridge is high in the east, low in the west, and on the river in the north. The bridge was short. When the canal flooded in the summer, every household was submerged in the bay. By the time a new channel was dug and it no longer flooded every year, it was already 1976, when Wang Zhenhua was in junior high school. ”
Wang Zhenhua was born in Wangyeji Village, Hutangqiaowanli Brigade in 1962. During his youth, he was always associated with the flooding canal water near the village and his poor family situation. But as his father Wang Sanda started his own business, the family's situation changed dramatically. Lao Lu recalled: "Wang Sanda and his wife Wang Xingdi should be said to be capable people in the countryside. In the 1970s, Hutang Commune encouraged each brigade to set up their own factories. Some produced farm tools and some made woodware, but the sales were not good. Wang San Da was in poor health and could not do heavy work. He had five sons at home and had a lot of expenses. After 1978, he began to help a fishing gear factory in Shatang Bank to sell fish hooks and nets to other places. A few years later, it became a lake. One of the few "Ten Thousand Yuan Households" in Tangqiao. At that time, people in the village called him "Wang Sanwan."
Wang Zhenhua, the youngest of the five sons, was admitted to Xinhu, which was only 300 meters away from home. Middle school, spent two years here.According to the memory of Mr. Ding, who served as the vice principal of the school in the early 1980s: "This school in Xinhu was first temporarily established by the Wanli Brigade to popularize compulsory education. Most of the students were the children of local villagers. After 1977, due to the college entrance examination, After recovery, four two-year high school classes were added. Wang Zhenhua was in Class 1 of 1977, and his later wife Chen Jing was from the nearby Qiushu Brigade. They were in the same class as him, but they fell in love and got married. It was a few years later. "
In Teacher Ding's impression, Wang Zhenhua was taciturn and diligent in his studies, but he didn't have much to show for himself.: "At that time, Xinhu Middle School was admitted to college, college, and technical secondary school. There are more than thirty graduates every year, which is not low in proportion. If Wang Zhenhua works hard, he has great hope. But I remember that he replaced his mother and went to work at the Hongqi Cotton Textile Factory as soon as he graduated in 1979. People hoped that Xiaolao (the local dialect for "child") would start working soon. But after a year, I heard that the factory sent him to Wujin Radio and Television University (Radio and Television University), and he still got a college diploma. "
1979 After failing the college entrance examination a year later, he was able to get the opportunity to enter university as an ordinary young worker in a cotton textile factory. This was the first good fortune Wang Zhenhua experienced in his early years. The early school buildings of TV University were borrowed from various units by the Wujin County Government. Students usually study on a day-time basis, and the atmosphere is more like an "over-age" middle school. Yang Bing, a college classmate, remembers two things related to Wang Zhenhua - the main campus of Radio and Television University at that time was located on the top floor of the newly built office building of Wujin County No. 1 Cotton Textile Factory (formerly Hongqi Cotton Textile Factory), and it was here that Wang Zhenhua worked The factory took over the position of his mother Wang Xingdi and later became a middle-level leader. At that time, a school leader named Chen who was responsible for the daily management of TVU was the father of Wang Zhenhua’s high school classmate Chen Jing. A few years later, he became the father-in-law of "Old Wang".
In the summer of 1983, Wang Zhenhua, who had completed three years of off-the-job study, returned to the production workshop of Wujin No. 1 Cotton Spinning Factory and began the process of accumulating his "first pot of gold" in the textile industry. Adjacent to the canal and with convenient transportation, Hutangqiao has become an important town in the weaving, printing and dyeing industry in southern Jiangsu as early as the Republic of China. In 1968, the newly built Wujin No. 1 Cotton Textile Factory was completed and put into operation. By 1982, it had a factory of 35,000 square meters, 30,000 spindles and 464 automatic looms, which was a considerable scale.
In the early days of reform and opening up, in order to cooperate with the country's goal of earning foreign exchange from exports, the southern Jiangsu region once had a trend of developing a light textile industry. Due to its historical accumulation and favorable geographical conditions, Changzhou has become the unrivaled center. Li Longda, who worked at the Wujin No. 1 Cotton Textile Factory with Wang Zhenhua, recalled: "Wu Wenying, the then Minister of Textile Industry, was a cotton spinning factory worker in Changzhou when he was young. In 1978, Vice Premier Ji Dengkui of the State Council visited the lake specifically. Tangqiao, inspecting the local social-run weaving factory. "Although Wujin No. 1 Cotton Textile Factory is only a medium-sized factory, it has nearly 2,000 employees, a complete supply chain, and direct access to the Provincial Textile Industry Department. For Wang Zhenhua at that time, this was undoubtedly a high starting point.
Li Longda analyzed: "Our factory was first established by merging the weaving workshops of each brigade. Later, a new factory was built in the Wanli brigade area. In name, it is a county-run 'large collective' enterprise, but in fact it has always been run by The leaders of the 'small collective' of Hutang Commune and the heads of the main workshops are all locals of Hutangqiao. " Wang Zhenhua, who has the three advantages of being a college student, a local and young, is like a duck in water in this environment, and he has become a leader in just five years. Became deputy director of the production workshop. Li Longda still remembers that "Old Wang" got married in 1985, and when his eldest son Wang Xiaosong was born two years later, he gave candies to many colleagues. "It should be said that Wang Zhenhua was a capable person at that time. Not only his business ability, but also his good vision and the right time to make decisions."
"Vision" with a metaphysical color does not mean gambling-style betting , sometimes it is associated with obtaining information in advance and interpreting the potential opportunities it contains. While old "factory people" like Li Longda are still looking forward to the cotton textile factory continuing to grow bigger and stronger, decisive policy changes are already brewing.
According to Pu Guorong, who served as deputy director of the Changzhou Municipal Economic Commission in the 1980s, starting in 1984, the Changzhou Municipal Party Committee decided to rectify the collective industrial enterprises within its jurisdiction and transform the "small but comprehensive" old-style collective enterprises into efficient ones. Higher corporate groups. In other words, medium-sized enterprises such as Wujin No. 1 Cotton Textile Factory will no longer take care of the entire process from raw material procurement to finished product sales. Different business links will be split into a series of new enterprises and put into operation in the form of "enterprise clusters." Another major step in the rectification was the agreement to expand the autonomy of enterprises, especially the change from the past practice of "party committees leading everything" to the factory director/manager responsibility system. This means that in the new enterprise, the person in charge of operations will have a great say.
Wang Zhenhua seized the opportunity brought by the changing wind direction. In the autumn of 1988, he began to preside over the daily production and operation of a small weaving factory that was spun off from an old cotton spinning mill. In 1990, this new enterprise located in Qiushu Brigade was officially renamed "Hutang District Weaving Factory", and Wang Zhenhua became the director and legal person.
Xu Ming believes that this is a very important time period: "The restructuring of town-run and township-run collective enterprises in the late 1980s was actually a gray area. In just a few years, many small and medium-sized enterprises with good foundations lost control. In the past, township cadres and their affiliates paid almost nothing, especially for companies whose performance fluctuated due to the impact of economic and foreign trade policies. Some ownership rights were almost given to managers who could handle government relations. Wang Zhenhua himself and his wife’s family have certain financial resources, and they are natives of Hutang. It is natural that he can take the lead.”
The boundary between “public” and “private” lies in the special history. The background becomes extremely blurry, which is a key feature of the "inner circle" mode. What is certain is that in the few years he traveled in the Hutangqiao textile industry, Wang Zhenhua accumulated not only start-up capital, but also connections in the "inner circle" and business experience.
"Rural areas surround cities"
He Qufu, associate professor of the Business School of Hunan University of Science and Technology, found in a special study in 2008 that after Wujin withdrew from counties and established cities in 1995, it has actually continued to upgrade its independence with Hutang Town as the center. radial pattern. The east and west wings of Changzhou's old city have always been restricted by the "U-shaped surround" of Wujin. Except for the expansion of the newly established high-tech development zone in the north (now Xinbei District), there is no room for expansion. Before Wujin was withdrawn from the city and restructured into districts in 2002, the total land area of Changzhou's old urban area was only half of that of Wujin, forming a peculiar "spatial inversion" phenomenon. The infrastructure center of "Greater Changzhou" has been moved to Wujin, and Hutang Bridge is the center of Wujin.
According to Wang Zhenhua’s own description in an interview with the media, he decided to invest in real estate development in Hutangqiao because he read a booklet "Real Estate: An Unsinkable Ship in the Investment Tide" recommended by a friend in 1993. But according to Lao Lu, the story is a different version: "At that time, the entire Hutang was engaged in village and town construction. Hutang Bridge was going to become the center of Xinwujin, and the former rural bungalows had to be demolished to build buildings. "Wang Zhenhua's uncle is the brigade secretary of Wanli brigade. Would he not know about this business opportunity?" Xu Ming's explanation of the origin of the name "Xincheng" also verified this speculation from the side. However, with limited start-up funds, Wang Zhenhua could only start from Wanli, which he was most familiar with, and began to accumulate experience and funds by undertaking renovated housing projects in villages and towns.
"At that time, Wang Zhenhua's capital was only enough to do one project a year. The Wanli area was low-lying and not a good land, and he had acquaintances. Even so, Lao Wang's Wanli New Village East District project only built We built one building with 72 households in two units.” Ms. Liu, who had a loan relationship with Wang Zhenhua in the 1990s, recalled, “But the good thing is that the construction and renovation of villages and towns in Hutang has continued. To build more than 20 buildings, even if one square meter is sold for only a few hundred yuan, tens of millions will be obtained in three years without much risk."Wang Zhenhua himself once called his early development strategy "rural areas surrounding cities" - based on the basic market of Hutang's "inner circle", he attempted to develop into Changzhou urban area.
In 1996, Wang Zhenhua registered Wujin New City Company The new corporate entity "Xincheng Holdings" has expanded its development scope to Zhongliang New Village on the other side of the canal. This land has extended to the outskirts of the old city of Changzhou, but it is still under the jurisdiction of Wujin City and is not far from the "inner circle" of Hutang. It is less than 4 kilometers. According to Jiang Guoyuan, who was the director of Changzhou Housing Management Bureau at the time, Zhongliang New Village was part of the ongoing pilot "Household Project" to solve the problem of renovating dilapidated housing in the old city of Changzhou. From 1995 to 2000, the entire city of Changzhou built an average of 160,000 square meters of housing for the "Household Project" every year. In order to encourage local companies to participate, the city government proposed a series of preferential policies for developers to reduce or exempt relevant fees and taxes. After the holding intervened in the project, it successively developed seven phases of projects such as Zhongliang No. 2 Village and Zhongliang Garden East District, and the scale began to expand.
Wang Zhenhua ( picture | Visual China)
“It should be said that Lao Wang did not make every move. Gotta be steady. In the first few years when he started working on the Zhongliang New Village project, his capital chain was quite tight. "Ms. Liu recalled, "House prices in Hutangqiao are lower than those in Changzhou city. What he got in the city was a housing project with a low average price. Several lines were operated at the same time, which put pressure on him. "In Lao Lu's impression, Wang Zhenhua's second brother committed suicide due to depression during this period, and rumors among acquaintances were related to Xincheng's business difficulties. But all this was eventually changed by major policy changes - in 1999, Changzhou City issued Four supporting documents including the "Implementation Plan for Further Deepening the Reform of the Urban Housing System" established the overall goal of housing commercialization. From then on to 2002, the city's real estate industry entered its first growth window, and the amount of real estate development investment increased. Rapidly increasing from 2.232 billion yuan to 4.1 billion yuan, the golden age of the "New City System" has arrived.
"The average price of residential real estate in Changzhou is much higher than that in Wujin, and the room for growth is also large, so the boss (Wang Zhenhua) insists on it every year. We need to build a project in the urban area to gain popularity. But he didn’t want to give up on Hutang because it was safe. "A middle-level cadre from Changzhou who worked in a "New City System" enterprise at the turn of the century told this publication, "With lakes and ponds, the rear is guaranteed. Changzhou is the front line. To compete with other real estate companies, advantages need to be accumulated slowly. "Wang Zhenhua himself once called the period from 1998 to 2002 his "Changzhou Urban Attack" stage: During these four years, the annual sales area of the "New City" increased from the initial 60,000 square meters to 260,000 square meters, and the revenue Breaking through 150 million yuan, the total assets reached 1 billion yuan. The son of "Wang Sanwan" is now "Wang Sanyi". In 2001, which was also in the "tough" stage, Xincheng Holdings also completed an important capital investment. Layout - backdoor listing of B-shares. A manager from Changzhou said: "B-shares are listed in China, but they are traded in foreign currencies. The market size is not large, so it is not a good choice. The boss (Wang Zhenhua) made this decision, I guess, firstly to cater to the slogan of the Wujin Municipal Government at that time, hoping to attract foreign investment to participate in the new Wujin development. At that time, he already had Canadian permanent residence status and sent his wife away, so he thought he could try his luck in overseas markets. The other thing is to help people get out of trouble, because Xincheng bought the B-share shell of Wuling Diesel Engine at that time. Around 2001, the domestic small and medium-sized diesel engine market was sluggish, and Wuling's major shareholder Wujin Diesel Engine Factory took away the listed company's funds to fill its own hole. , resulting in huge losses. The boss taking action at this time is equivalent to taking over the situation for Wu Jin, and it will definitely pay off in the future. Besides, the shell is not expensive either. "
By investing 108.4 million yuan to acquire 29.36% of the legal person shares in Wuling Diesel, Wang Zhenhua completed the listing steps of reorganizing the shell assets and renaming it "Jiangsu Xincheng". In December 2015, Xincheng Holdings successfully achieved "B "Transfer to A" was listed on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and closed at 29.35 yuan per share that day, an increase of 198.88%. Wang Zhenhua thus became a "hundred billion-level" real estate giant.
"Outer Circle" and "Inner Circle"
"I have a pretty good impression of Xincheng. The business is very formal, and I haven't heard of any irregularities in Shanghai." He has been deeply involved in the Shanghai real estate rental market for nearly 20 years. Mr. Zhan told this publication, "I have had some business dealings with Xincheng, mainly involving residential real estate, both in Shanghai and in cities around Shanghai. It should be said that they have no particularly distinctive characteristics. After all, they entered the Shanghai market relatively late. Belonging to the second echelon.”
In 2002, the entire Chinese real estate market was sounding the charge to “enter first-tier cities.” Guangzhou's R&F Real Estate began to test the waters in Beijing, Sunchi's Sun Hongbin was preparing to leave Tianjin, and Wang Zhenhua, who guarded the "rear area" of Wujin, also began to extend his tentacles to Shanghai and surrounding cities in the Yangtze River Delta. In November of this year, the opening ceremony of the first EMBA (Executive Master of Business Administration) class of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business was held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Shanghai. Wang Zhenhua was among the 105 students. Three months later, he registered Shanghai Xincheng Chuangzhi Real Estate Co., Ltd. in Shanghai and began to develop his first real estate project after "entering Shanghai" on the relatively remote side of the Qingpu District Ring Expressway. The decision-making center and management of the “New City System” have since gradually moved to Shanghai.
"Shanghai's residential property market is very different from that of the Shanghai-ring region. If you look at the data of the past five years, the average price of newly launched residential properties in Shanghai has hardly increased, and the room for growth is not as good as that of the Shanghai-ring cities." Mr. Zhan analyzed Said, "The supply of land is limited, and almost no new land parcels have entered the market in the inner ring area. In this case, it is difficult for the second tier to make a name for itself. Of course, money can still be made. After all, the average price is relatively high. After all, If you put the land in your hands and 'cover it', you can always make a profit, but it is impossible to expect to establish a significant advantage in the Shanghai market. In fact, no giant has achieved this. "
is standardized, monotonous, and stable. This is the unanimous impression of the local employees recruited by the "New City System" after entering Shanghai. A sales manager who has left the company told this magazine: "The boss will ask the old employees he brought from Changzhou to tell the newcomers about his entrepreneurial history and talk about the 'camel spirit' and 'bayonet consciousness', but it is not too much. . On average, one or two projects are sold every year, but there is nothing special about it."
An intriguing fact is that while the "New City Department" headquarters moved east to Shanghai, Wang Zhenhua did not slow down in " The base camp of Changzhou, especially Wujin Hutang, continues to expand at a rapid pace. From 2001 to 2003, Xincheng Real Estate successively won two township demolition and construction projects, two new residential projects and a villa area in Wujin District, spending more than 540 million yuan on land acquisition alone. When a 189,000-square-meter plot of land in the southwest corner of Changhong Road was auctioned in 2006, the price reached 283 million yuan. In this regard, Zhang Mingxing, who once worked in the Wujin District Branch of the Changzhou Municipal Planning Bureau, has his own opinion: "In the 1990s, Wujin County proposed the goal of building a 'Southern New City', but due to the funding gap, it actually took 10 years before it was actually implemented. Implementation. From 2003 to 2010, the entire Hutangqiao was really in the process of being demolished. The villages and small factories in the past were all turned into residential buildings and commercial real estate. In this case, it was necessary to hoard as much land as possible. It will definitely bring huge returns. Although not every piece of land obtained by Xincheng is good enough, the average price is low and the room for growth is large. Whether it is building a residential property or a commercial complex, it is a sure profit. Not to mention that Wang Zhenhua has many ways to get a bank loan. "
On January 22, 2016, Xincheng Holdings announced that the company's actual controller and chairman Wang Zhenhua was under investigation by the Changzhou Wujin District Discipline Inspection Commission. A person in charge of a local construction company in Changzhou who had cooperated with the "New City Department" told this publication: "At that time, Shen Ruiqing, the former deputy director of the Changzhou Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee, was suspected of serious disciplinary violations and was arrested. Many local officials were involved, including Wang Zhenhua and Wu Jin, a large-scale construction company. The chairman of the construction group company has been investigated." From 2005 to 2011, Shen Ruiqing served as the secretary of the Wujin District Party Committee as a member of the Changzhou Municipal Party Committee Standing Committee. This stage was also the period when Xincheng Holdings further expanded in the "inner circle." Key nodes.Ms. Liu, Wang Zhenhua’s early partner, was involved in building the capital chain of many real estate projects in Changzhou. She recalled: “As of 2010, Changzhou will produce five to six million square meters of new real estate projects every year. Some factories in the past , schools, and government office buildings were relocated to Xinbei District, a key development area of the city government, under the new planning plan, and the original land was auctioned off. The 'New City Department' liked this kind of old factory and school land very much. With the supply of new land in the old city becoming less and less, an old factory area is 60,000 to 70,000 square meters of land, which is built into residential buildings and sold, just like the money printing machine. In 2006, Wang Zhenhua acquired the energy equipment factory and the land. The two pieces of land for the chemical engineering school are more than 60,000 square meters each, and the price is only more than 200 million yuan. Without reliable connections, it would be difficult for him to do it. "
Mr. Shi, a former Citibank senior analyst who has long been concerned about the East China real estate market. , has long noticed the different development strategies of new cities in the "inner circle" and the "outer circle". He told this publication on the phone: "Before 2010, more than half of the new real estate projects in the entire 'new city system' were located in Wujin District, and Wujin often surrounded the town of Hutang. This is a very unusual phenomenon. Because After Wang Zhenhua moved east to Shanghai, the business scope of the "New City System" has expanded to more than a dozen cities in East China. In this case, it is not logical to launch a "Great Leap Forward" in Wujin, the rear area. It doesn’t make sense.” By the end of 2018, the “New City System” had completed 38 residential real estate projects in Changzhou, and multiple commercial real estate projects were completed or under construction, more than half of which were in Wujin District. Estimated in terms of proportion, the number of projects within a 3-kilometer radius of Hutang Town alone accounts for more than 5% of the total development volume of the "New City System" since its creation. Considering that most of these projects were born in the middle and early stages of the company's rapid expansion of capital scale, the value of the "inner circle" is evident.
Wang Zhenhua’s lack of concealment of his “inner circle” relationships is also an outlier among real estate giants. Mr. Shi said: "In the past decade or so, when mainland companies choose to list in Hong Kong, most of them will blur the relationship between themselves and local governments. Because of the strong anti-corruption efforts in the mainland, excessive publicity that companies follow local governments If it is too close, investors will become suspicious. But Wang Zhenhua doesn’t seem to be worried about this. When Xincheng Development, a subsidiary of the Xincheng Group, was listed in Hong Kong in 2012, several local officials from Changzhou and Wujin accompanied the company’s management.”
This kind of intimate relationship based on the "inner circle" will of course bring corresponding rewards - in 2006, a 51,000-square-meter piece of land in Xiaomiao Village, Hutang Town was purchased by Changzhou Xincheng and its partners for 115 million yuan. It was won and built into a high-rise commercial and residential project, but the original local planning plan was a "new rural demonstration site" for resettling villagers.
Behind the "revolving door"
"The History of Changzhou Urban Construction in the New Era (1978-2015)", compiled by the Changzhou Municipal Local Chronicles Office and reviewed by many witnesses, mentioned the local real estate market in the early 21st century in a positive tone : "Between 2006 and 2010, the real estate industry gradually became a pillar industry in Changzhou. In 2010, the sales volume of commercial housing and commercial housing ranked first in the province, and the city's total land transfer fee exceeded the historical peak in 2009 and hit a new high, reaching 30.199 billion. Yuan." The proportion of commercial housing sales in Wujin Center rose to 30.71% in the entire Changzhou city. It was also during this period that the asset scale of the "New City System" rose from 35th in the national real estate industry (2005) to 19th (2011), ranking first in Jiangsu Province, and officially entered the "No. 1" real estate industry. Second Echelon".
At the same time, former local officials from Wujin District appear more and more frequently in Wang Zhenhua’s management team. In early November 2017, the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced that since Ouyang Jie, Vice President of Seazen Holdings, self-released significant information related to the company's financial status without authoritative basis, it may mislead investors, and will pay regulatory attention to him. Public information shows that before joining Jiangsu Xincheng in 2007, Ouyang Jie served as deputy director of the Wujin District Government Office and director of the District Administrative Approval Service Center.According to people familiar with the matter, among the list of directors, supervisors and senior managers of Xincheng Holdings, there are also many former party and government officials, including the former deputy director of the Organization Department of the Wujin District Party Committee and the former deputy director of the Wujin District Nanxiashu Subdistrict Office.
Xu Ming doesn’t feel it’s against this “revolving door” phenomenon of flexible identity switching. He commented: "More than ten years ago was a critical stage for the massive expansion of 'new cities', which required a large number of executives who understood local policies and the market environment. Wang Zhenhua has liked to communicate with local officials in Hutangqiao and Wujin Districts since he started doing business. Deal with them and ask them to serve as consultants. Some younger and more highly educated Wujin cadres also wanted to "move around" and find a job with a good salary, so they went to the enterprise. It has not been introduced yet. Although this phenomenon is not too common, it is not unusual.” However, Xu Ming could not help but feel that Wang Zhenhua was sometimes too diligent in “taking care of some of the cadres’ worries” - “Formerly known as Zhonglou District, Changzhou City. One of the main leaders of the company has been presiding over a government-supported senior care real estate project in Wujin since 2011. The idea at that time was not to sell houses, but only to sell memberships. However, local people did not buy it, and the response was not good. Later, Wang Zhenhua came forward to buy it. The controlling stake in this project is still managed by this leader, but it has actually become an ordinary commercial property for sale. Do you think he is interested in the profit from selling the house, or the connections between the people behind the project and the government? "
Not surprisingly, this senior care real estate project is still located in Wang Zhenhua's "inner circle", still within the 3-kilometer radius circle of Hutang Town.
illustration | Lao Niu
After 2010, Lao Lu had fewer and fewer opportunities to see his old acquaintance Wang Zhenhua. After the headquarters of Seazen Holdings moved east to Shanghai, Wang Zhenhua would only occasionally return to the Wanli community when he returned to Changzhou to participate in major project signings and attend charity events in his hometown. Even during the Spring Festival, he rarely returned to his hometown to visit relatives. Lao Lu said: "It should be said that he has a good relationship with his hometown. When the Wang family in Hutang was compiling the genealogy, Lao Wang (Wang Zhenhua) donated hundreds of thousands. His mother believed in Buddhism and gave nothing to Wu Jin over the years. Baolin Temple spent more than 1 million to donate incense and build a statue of Guanyin, but it has never built a road or built a primary school in Wanli. "
Such complex character traits have also been obtained by those who have a close relationship with the Wang family. Ms. Liu’s circumstantial evidence. According to her recollection: "Lao Wang is the one who talks about everything in the family. After Xincheng's business started, although several of his brothers also registered their names in the group and held shares, Lao Wang was still the only one doing business. The final say. The struggle for property that has occurred in many family businesses in Wujin has never happened in Xincheng." His wife Chen Jing helped Wang Zhenhua in the early days of his business, but in 1997, she settled in Canada. Two years later. She gave birth to a daughter there and did not return to China until 2005 to settle in Shanghai.
Regarding Wang Zhenhua’s family relationships and personal life, Ms. Liu’s description of Wang Zhenhua’s family relationship and personal life has a hint of tolerance typical of “experienced people”: “Old Wang has always had little shortage of little girls around him. He himself had thought about immigrating in 1999, but After the business grew, I changed my mind. My wife was raising children in Canada and changing nationalities. He was alone in China and had several girls around him. They were all introduced by trustworthy people. "Gong" (local dialect means getting along) Many partners in Changzhou know that even after his wife returned from Canada, Wang Zhenhua still maintained an unusual relationship with the family of Zhou Yanfen, a woman from Hutang. As a member of the "inner circle", Zhou Yanfen and her family members also entered the industrial chain of "New City" and started a building materials business.
In Fubei New Village, adjacent to Huayuan Street, Hutang Town, Zhou Yanfen’s former neighbors sketched out a general image of this mysterious middle-aged woman: “This area of Fubei New Village is the demolition resettlement housing of Heliu Village, Hutangqiao. Zhou Yanfen The family is a native of Heliu and has three daughters. Zhou Yanfen is the eldest and divorced very early. She has more contact with her father and the second sister. The third sister of the Zhou family is not involved in their business and is more responsible. While Jing was settling in Canada, Wang Zhenhua and Zhou Yanfen met, and they had become close friends over the years.In 2009, Zhou Yanfen's father and second sister registered a building materials company. Two years later, sales exceeded 86 million yuan. The registered address of this company was the property under Zhou Yanfen's name in Fubei New Village. In 2012, Zhou Yanfen herself launched an earthwork and stone engineering company with a registered capital of 5 million yuan, located just a few hundred meters away on Huayuan Street.
350 meters due west of Huayuan Street, stands the sizable office building of the Wujin District Government of Changzhou City, from which the name "Fubei New Village" comes. That summer 27 years ago, the Wujin County Government moved here, and all the stories about the dream of getting rich and the myth of the "new city" began. At that time, Wang Zhenhua was living in Wanli Community 2 kilometers to the north, while Heliu Village, the hometown of the Zhou sisters, was waiting for renovation 1.5 kilometers to the west. They are so dependent on this "inner circle" - in fact, to this day, Wang Zhenhua's old mother and Zhou Yanfen's father still live in two mansions developed by Xincheng Real Estate on both sides of Huayuan Street. But their children will not come back for the time being: on June 28, 2019, Zhou Yanfen took the two girls she found in Changzhou to Shanghai under the pretext of "visiting Disneyland". Based on the victim's statement, the outpatient records of a hospital in Putuo, Shanghai, and the identification of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, the Shanghai Putuo District Court found in the first instance that Wang Zhenhua had indecent injuries to one of the girls. On June 16, 2020, the first instance of Wang Zhenhua’s suspected child molestation case was held in the Putuo District People’s Court of Shanghai, and the trial was not open in accordance with the law. On June 17, the Putuo District People's Court sentenced defendant Wang Zhenhua to five years in prison for child molestation.
[This article was originally published in the 35th issue of Sanlian Life Weekly in 2020. At the request of the interviewee, some of the names of the people appearing in the article were pseudonyms. The area and amount data of Changzhou's real estate market and land projects are referred to: "Changzhou City Land and Resources Chronicle (1995~2007)"
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Liu Yi
Weekly special editor, former deputy editor of "War History Research", A text worker who is not good at chatting and does not have a social network account.
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