went to court with the merchants, and employees came to collect debts. Suning had a difficult time in 2021.
The equity transfer in the first half of the year was eventually brought in by state-owned assets. Chairman Zhang Jindong resigned...
In the second half of the year, news of "Suning.com going bankrupt" came out repeatedly, and then the official issued a statement denying it, saying Everything is operating normally. There are various signs that Suning is facing an unprecedented critical moment.
The third quarter report of 2021 shows that Suning.com’s revenue decreased by 64.82% year-on-year to 21.968 billion yuan; the net loss was 4.116 billion yuan, and the profit in the same period last year was 714 million yuan. The company's single-quarter revenue was its lowest since 2012. The single-quarter loss is also the second-highest loss in the 17 years since its listing, following the net loss of 4.822 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2020.
1. Suning’s current situation: arrears in payment, overdue financial management
On February 25, 2021, Suning.com issued an announcement stating that it had received notice from the company’s actual controller and controlling shareholder Zhang Jindong and shareholder Suning Group that it planned to plan the company. Share transfer matters.
Until July, the transfer matter was settled. After many twists and turns, Jiangsu State-owned Assets finally took action, joining forces with Alibaba , Haier , Xiaomi and other industrial investors to enter the market and acquire 16.96% of the shares to become Suning's third largest shareholder. Since then, Zhang Jindong has lost actual control of Suning.com and used Tesco to "change ownership" in exchange for 8.8 billion yuan in external bailout funds.
"This is a manifestation of tight capital chains." Liang Zhenpeng, a senior industrial economics expert, said. In this Suning crisis, Suning's suppliers are also suffering.
Some merchants said that Suning has been out of stock after June 18, and Suning's payment has not been settled, and even spot exchange has been converted into commercial acceptance , and commercial acceptance has been delayed again and again, and finally proposed to use Suning Card to deduct the goods. The merchant expressed dissatisfaction with this, "The payment is almost 500,000 yuan, you use Suning Card to pay for it?"
Similarly, according to Suning.com's supplier in Hubei, Wuhan Chengtian Guangyun Information Technology Co., Ltd., at present, The unpaid payment due by Suning.com is 10.33 million yuan. As the new year is approaching, the merchant implores Suning.com to cash in the over-future payment of 2.65 million yuan before January 10 to meet the urgent need.
Today, the 10th has passed, and the realization is still far away. Suning had no response, leaving only merchants posting complaints over and over again on Weibo , Zhihu and @officialreportermedia.
Picture source: Weibo
On the other side, the desperate merchant filed a pleading and took Suning.com to court.
China National Building Materials Information Technology Co., Ltd. issued an announcement on November 19, 2021, saying that because Suning Procurement Center defaulted on the company’s payment, the company had filed a lawsuit against Suning.com Group in the court. The case involved a total amount of nearly 310 million yuan.
In addition, Chengdu Rainbow Electrical Appliances (Group) Co., Ltd. filed a lawsuit with the court, requesting an order for Suning and other two defendants to pay the plaintiff 36.71 million yuan in bills and interest.
In the current situation of Suning, which has a tight capital chain, suppliers are not the only "victims".
html On November 5, many Suning employees wore red vests with the slogan "Suning Pays Back" and went near Suning's headquarters in Nanjing to collect debts owed to employees by the company.
Picture source: Douyin
This all started in October 2020. When Suning Group was deeply involved in a liquidity crisis, it opened a financial management section called "Internal Exclusive" on the "Suning Financial APP". Investment targets are limited to the company's more than 200,000 employees. But a year later, the expired "financial management products" became "internal employee loans", and payments continued to be overdue.
Although Suning Group issued an internal letter to stabilize military morale, "For the loans that have expired, the principal and interest will be deferred. The outstanding principal will be fully repaid from March 31, 2022 to November 30, 2022. Interest will be paid monthly."
But the continuous decrease in the payment amount destroyed the last trace of trust among Suning employees.
Many investors who were victims of overdue financial management reported that they were basically paid once a week, but the amount was gradually reduced, from the initial 10% to 5%. In the latest week, only 1% was paid...
2. Retail The overlord is losing ground
Suning Appliance , which was first established in 1990, once and Gome each accounted for half of China's offline retail sales. Even after Gome Huang Guangyu was imprisoned, he took the lead and no one could compete with him. And why did the former retail hegemon reach a critical juncture of survival?
In the eyes of industry insiders, Suning’s mistakes began with its late transformation of e-commerce.
At that time, after Suning defeated its old rival Gome, new rivals such as Tmall and Jingdong emerged in an all-round way. As a new thing, e-commerce has a dazzling development momentum. It is young, vibrant and contains unlimited possibilities.
But at that time, facing the emerging e-commerce industry, Suning did not realize that the crisis was coming, and still focused on its dream of offline expansion.
Until 2013, Suning.com was officially established and launched "online and offline integration". However, under the strong Internet economy of Matthew Effect , Taobao and JD.com were first come, first served, leaving only Suning.com, which blindly imitated. There is no market share at all, and it can only be reduced to crane and tail. After
, Zhang Jindong, who was constantly frustrated in the e-commerce model, turned his goal to the investment industry, but since then he has made one wrong step after another.
Some brokers and investment bankers believe that the reason why Suning is in a serious cash liquidity crisis is mainly because the investment in the past few years has been too chaotic, disorderly expansion, and there is no main line.
In 2013, Suning acquired PPTV for US$250 million;
In 2014, Suning acquired Manzuo.com for US$10 million;
In 2015, Suning 1.93 billion yuan invested in smartphone Nubia ;
In 2016, Suning first spent 1.96 billion yuan to acquire 68.5% of the equity of Inter Milan Club, and then spent 322 million US dollars to buy Longzhu Live .
In less than two years, the high-spirited investment at that time basically turned into a loss-making business, and PPTV lost more than one billion; Manzuo.com was closed a year after it was acquired; Nubia Mobile lost 200 million in 2016 and is now basically silent. disappeared; the Longzhu Live Broadcasting Platform even directly lost 500 million that year.
Until 2017, the 20 billion alliance between and Evergrande was considered by many Suning employees as the "last straw" that crushed Suning. As Evergrande exploded, Suning's capital chain began to loosen.
In this series of failed transformations, there is also a sad story of "the times have abandoned you, without even saying hello". Under the impact of the Internet wave, the retail industry was once full of disasters, and many people shouted "e-commerce" has emerged, retail will die” argument, which is one of the reasons why Suning was forced to transform.
3. Does Suning still have a future?
On December 26, in the "Letter to All Employees on the 31st Anniversary of Suning", Zhang Jindong encouraged employees, "In future development, we will inevitably face more severe difficulties and challenges, but as long as we do not forget our original aspirations, we will definitely face more severe difficulties and challenges." ml4. With firm confidence and the persistent and hard-working spirit of Suning people, we will definitely be able to overcome the difficulties and usher in the dawn.”
Although Suning seems to have emerged from its darkest moment with the entry of state-owned assets, it is obviously still in trouble.
Chen Xin, an accounting professor at the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, pointed out Suning's pain points in the article "Why Suning.com's stock price has not risen in ten years". He believed that, "Although Suning.com has better asset quality and cash flow creation potential, but the company has long-term financial support to Suning Sports through industrial spillover effects and related transactions. It is a blood transfusion. The growth of the main retail business cannot reflect profits. Investments such as commercial real estate consume huge amounts of cash flow. Financial investments have high risks and cannot provide stable profits. They can only rely on accounting methods and investment income to maintain superficial profits. "
At present, it is for sale. The shares are only exchanged for a drop in salary, and a depleted wallet is a situation that Suning cannot avoid.
A senior investor said, "The model of listed companies selling assets to the unlisted system, obtaining paper profits, and then leasing them back has been dependent on financial support for a long time."
He is not optimistic about Suning's future. "The main reason is that Suning's supermarket chain model has no future under the impact of e-commerce, and Suning's own e-commerce has not developed either." Under the epidemic, Suning is bound to withstand more tests.
However, some netizens believe that with the entry of state-owned assets into Suning, Suning may gradually get better in the future.
A professor from the economics department of a university said bluntly, "First of all, selling assets and introducing state-owned assets are to solve the liquidity crisis currently faced by enterprises and to pave the way for subsequent corporate transformation. At present, enterprises are facing great challenges to themselves and the economic environment. From the current situation The financial situation is indeed not optimistic, but The entry of state-owned assets also provides more implicit guarantees for the company to get out of the predicament. With the transformation of the retail cloud business and the continuous optimization of the shareholder structure, I believe the company still has the ability and determination to get out of the predicament. "
But when will Suning's future come? , and whether it will come, only time can give us the answer.
Article source Paidai.com
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-