The collective ** gift of the second generation of real estate
The real estate industry is in the middle of winter, but the "second generation" of real estate developers have begun to show up collectively.
On December 8, Yang Huiyan stated that "the family will smash the pot and sell iron to support the company";On the same day, Sunac released the news that Sun Zheyi, the eldest son of Chairman Sun Hongbin, took over as the president of Sunac Beijing and partnered with Sunac veteran Jing Hong;Earlier, at the end of November, Wang Sicong, who had not appeared for a long time, appeared in Tai'an and attended the signing ceremony of the cultural tourism project in casual clothes.
The real estate tycoons collectively pushed the second generation to the front of the stage, once again triggering the infinite reverie of the outside world about the second generation.
Among the three, the youngest Sun Zheyi is 33 years old, Wang Sicong is 36 years old, and the eldest Yang Huiyan is 42 years old. At this age, most ordinary people can take charge of themselves and become the pillars of the family, but in the face of the hundreds of billions or even trillions of assets established by their parents, the second generation is still as young as a child.
Wang Sicong
In the past year, Sun Hongbin boiled his head to turn his head into debts, Wang Jianlin ran around to appease investors, and Country Garden fell into the whirlpool of "founder running away", Yang Guoqiang, who was in his old age, appeared at the construction site, and the turmoil was calmed down.
Obviously, it is beyond the power of the second generation to turn things around, and the mess that is as dangerous as eggs is not something that my father can't clean up. Compared with "the second generation of the second generation collectively changed from low-key to high-profile, it is more like a statement.
If the previous two generations fantasized about staying out of the matter by keeping a low profile, then the fate of the Xu Jiayin family is a hammer that shatters the dream. The day before the Mid-Autumn Festival, Xu Jiayin was imprisoned, and there were reports that Xu Jiayin's second son, Xu Tenghe, who rarely showed up, was also taken away at a similar time.
There are no eggs under the nest, and the second generation has long been tied to the family chariot, and can only advance and retreat with their parents.
Gree Dong Mingzhu once said that if a person has never experienced setbacks in his life, he is not mature. When the company carrying the family wealth is either facing a debt crisis or falling into a gambling puzzleWhen the fathers are fighting on the cliff, the cruel ** ceremony is also beckoning to the second generation.
The second generation who walked into the real world was faced with a veritable mess.
On December 8, at the monthly management meeting of Country Garden, Yang Huiyan, who was dressed in black, had a solemn face. In addition to shouting the slogan of "guaranteeing delivery, ensuring operation and guaranteeing credit" as always, she also said: "The family will definitely smash the pot and sell iron to support the company." ”
On the evening of the 12th, Country Garden issued another announcement that executive directors Yang Huiyan, Mo Bin, Yang Ziying and non-executive director Chen Chong took the initiative to reduce their salaries to an annual salary of 120,000 yuan and cancel the car allocation for senior executives.
The gimmick of this announcement is greater than the reality, Yang Huiyan's income cannot be measured by hundreds of thousands of annual salaries, and the money saved by these measures is only a drop in the bucket.
These statements and measures are more of a gesture to express that Country Garden is not lying flat, nor is it the next Evergrande.
Since the emergence of the Country Garden crisis, the outside world has repeatedly compared it with Evergrande, from the scale of debt to the financing environment, from the scale of the project to the prospect of restructuring.
The most important thing is the contrast between the behavior of the executives and the foundersLi Changjiang, president of Country Garden Service, cashed out at a low level, and the outside world immediately thought of Evergrande Xia HaijunYang Huiyan donated shares worth 6.4 billion Hong Kong dollars, and the outside world immediately thought of Xu Jiayin's marriage change, thinking that Yang Huiyan was preserving assets, until Country Garden refuted the rumors that the donation plan began at the beginning of last year, not a temporary intention, and the situation gradually subsided.
According to The Paper, the Yang family provided an interest-free loan of US$300 million to Country Garden in October, and before this borrowing, the Yang family supported the company by borrowing, increasing its holdings**, buying bonds, and paying dividends on behalf of shares, etc., totaling about HK$38.6 billion.
The market can't afford the fall of the second trillion real estate company, ** does not allow the emergence of the second Evergrande, Xu Jiayin's father and son are in prison, and Yang Guoqiang does not want to follow in Xu Jiayin's footsteps.
It is reported that before the official announcement of the Country Garden crisis, Yang Huiyan went to Beijing to meet a person - Sunac Sun Hongbin. What the two talked about is unknown to the outside world, but what the outside world knows is that Sun Hongbin squatted in prison in the early years, and when Sunac was "thunderous", Sun Hongbin paid for the company's blood transfusion many times out of his own pocket.
Sun Hongbin, who emptied his pockets and boiled his head white in order to resolve his debts, can finally breathe a sigh of relief recently. At the end of October, Sunac China announced that the company's overseas debt restructuring officially took effect, and the debt risk of about 90 billion yuan was temporarily alleviated.
But this does not mean that Sunac has gone ashore safely, and Sun Hongbin's pressure is still not small. As of October this year, Sunac's annual delivery target of 300,000 sets has only been completed by two-thirds, and the commercial bills for the project are still waiting in line for payment. In the final analysis, debt is rigid, while assets are soft, sales cannot keep up, and debt pressure is still huge.
Now it seems that Wang Jianlin is the relatively lucky one.
Wang Jianlin
On December 12, the Wanda VAM drama finally came to an end, and PAG became Wang Jianlin's rescue, with the former and Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group jointly announcing the signing of a new investment agreement to join other investors to reinvest in Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management after the redemption of its investment in 2021 at the end of its 2021 investment redemption period.
This investment will bring nearly 30 billion yuan of incremental funds to Dalian Wanda Commercial Management, and there will be no VAM clauses, and the sword hanging over Wanda's head for two years has finally been removed.
Wang Jianlin was also able to temporarily get out of the whirlpool, but the price was huge, Wang Jianlin not only lost absolute control of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management, but also handed over Wanda Movies to others.
At the threshold of the family standing on the cliff, the performance of the second generation is lackluster.
In the first half of 2022, Wanda expanded against the trend across the country, successively winning a number of projects under Xinyuan and Jianye, as well as Beijing Solana Blue Harbor and Blue Harbor Wukesong Shopping Center, and Wanda Commercial Management's listing officially entered the sprint stage. At this juncture, in August, Wang Sicong stepped down as a director of Wanda.
Retiring as a director and retaining equity is generally a practice of "taking a back seat" for the company's veterans, Wang Sicong is neither a veteran of the company, nor is he interested in going deep into Wanda's first line, so how can he say "take a back seat"?
After the news of Tai'an's signing was released, rumors of "Wang Sicong ** Wang Jianlin" were rampant, and Wanda's official response said that Wang Sicong "has been busy with his own affairs and basically does not participate in Wanda's business". Low-key and obedient may be Wanda's biggest contribution to Wang Sicong's crisis.
Yang Huiyan, who was crowned the "richest woman in China" by her father at the age of 23, has not been able to get rid of the influence of her father Yang Guoqiang.
On March 1 this year, 68-year-old Yang Guoqiang resigned as chairman and executive director of Country Garden, and continued to participate in the company's operation in the form of special advisers, and his successor is undoubtedly his second daughter Yang Huiyan.
From the perspective of corporate governance, before this day, Yang Huiyan was Yang Guoqiang's "shadow", and after this day, Yang Guoqiang will become the "shadow" behind Yang Huiyan. However, it is worth noting that on the day of the official handover, Yang Guoqiang was still working.
As of the first half of this year, Country Garden's interest-bearing liabilities were 257.9 billion yuan, and 1,216 debts had to be repaid within one year3.2 billion yuan, while Country Garden's cash and equivalents are about 10111.5 billion yuan.
Faced with this situation, Yang Huiyan had no good solution, so she could only pull out the family endorsement and "smash the pot and sell iron" to fully support the delivery of Country Garden, and these "pots" and "iron" were all saved by Yang Guoqiang.
Among the generation of real estate tycoons, Sun Hongbin is a relatively young one, only 60 years old this year, and his eldest son Sun Zheyi is also relatively young in the second generation, only 33 years old this year.
Since 2014, Sun Zheyi, a high-achieving student who graduated from Boston College, has entered Sunac for rotation training, and in 2018, he took over the Sunac Culture Group that carries Sun Hongbin's "Poetry and Distance", one of the most important underlying assets of the cultural group is Wanda Cultural Tourism City, which was taken over from Wang Jianlin.
In this year's Spring Festival, Sun Zhe bet on "The Wandering Earth 2", Sunac Culture gained fame and fortune as a co-producer, but the cultural sector is attached to Sunac Group, and this little money is far from reaching the point of saving Sunac's turmoil. At the end of the year, Sun Hongbin arranged Sun Zheyi to Sunac Beijing area to work with Sunac veteran Jing Hong, obviously hoping that Sun Zheyi would continue to experience in the real estate field.
The second generation is embarrassed at the moment, and there are factors such as their fledgling and insufficient ability to control their parents' business empire, but objectively speaking, the pot cannot be completely buckled on their heads.
Whether it is Sun Hongbin's "acquisition of the century" for Wanda in 2017, or Country Garden's aggressive expansion in the early years, or Wang Jianlin's repeated pulls in H-shares and A-shares, a generation's misjudgment of the situation is a major factor in the crisis of these companies.
Three years ago, Yang Guoqiang believed that Country Garden's new business development was vigorous and the future was promising, and he said that he would "do a good job of deep cultivation and continue to do it for a hundred years and a hundred years." Until March this year, when he took a back seat, Mr. Yang was optimistic about the situation. At Country Garden's annual work conference in February this year, Yang Guoqiang said, "Two months ago we were still walking through the dark tunnel, and today, two months later, we see some light at the mouth of the tunnel." Immediately afterwards, Country Garden began to restart land acquisition.
The influence of a generation is too strong, far-reaching and long-lasting, which is a common problem of Chinese family businesses.
Yang's move reflects that until the eve of the official handover, he still has unparalleled influence within the company;From Shunchi to Sunac, Sun Hongbin has always been the speaker of the group;The semi-military management of Wanda is more stringent, and Wang Jianlin is the only "king" in this fortress.
A generation of real estate tycoons may have been aware of this problem, but they have repeatedly hesitated in the choice of the successor routeNot only want to establish a modern enterprise system like Vanke and Lenovo, but also envy the family governance of Li Ka-shing and Zhengda Xie's family, under the hesitation, the crisis comes, and the fate of the company still has to be "shouldered" by the generation.
To some extent, the concerns of a generation are understandable.
On the one hand, the establishment of the enterprise is a family system, and it is not easy to turn, on the other hand, it is not easy to hand over to professional managers, and I am afraid that I will not be able to sit back and relax. In 2000, Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, handed over the company to professional managers, but after more than 20 years, Schultz "went out three times" to save Starbucks from the crisis.
Leaving the business in the hands of their children is obviously a safer option, but the second generation still faces one of the biggest problems - not the authority of the parents, but the lack of frustration.
Most of them are the second generation of the post-80s, who grew up in a wealthy family under the rapid economic growth, and have experienced decent setbacksYang Huiyan, who audited the board of directors as a teenager, was praised by her father as "the richest woman without a story" by her father at the age of 23;Sun Zhe has not entered the core and most dangerous real estate sector of Sunac until todayAs for Wang Sicong, his biggest setback before the family accident may have been the failure of his investment under his father's pocket.
Looking back on Wanda's rapid rise, Wang Jianlin was glad that he had caught up with the best era - 20 years early may be too old, and 20 years later may be gone.
This fate now falls on the heads of Wang Sicong and other second generations of real estate, 20 years earlier he is too young, his parents are still in the age of fighting, 20 years later, when a new opportunity comes, the second generation is also approaching. And at the moment when the fate of these families is hanging by a thread, the founder is nearing the twilight of life, the successor is in the prime of life, and the coming-of-age rite called frustration comes too late, and the drama of fate is nothing more dramatic than this.
The severe labor pains brought by the cycle, the second generation whose hearts are higher than the sky are also unavoidable, at this moment the task they can be competent for is not to turn the tide in the collapse of the building, but to reconcile with fate and firmly stand on the side of the family.
In this situation, how should the second generation deal with themselves?Wang Xiaofei, who was once angry with Wang Sicong, may be a mirror.
Wang Xiaofei
In terms of family background, Wang Xiaofei is difficult to look at the second generation of real estate developers, but Wang Xiaofei's setback came earlier than them.
In 2012, when Wang Sicong was still thanking God for choosing a simple model for his life, Wang Xiaofei had already seen the power of the VAM agreement, starting from the listing of the VAM with Dinghui, South Beauty went uphill, and Zhang Lan and Wang Xiaofei's mother and son lost control of the company step by step.
Without the shade of South Beauty, Wang Xiaofei's enthusiasm for entrepreneurship has not stopped, he has done bottled tea drinks, e-commerce platforms, and hotels, even with the blessing of Big S, the most successful of these projects is only unsatisfactory.
Wang Xiaofei once dreamed of being a great entrepreneur, and every one of his businesses could not be bypassed by personality, compared to entrepreneurs, Wang Xiaofei was more like an Internet celebrity.
Until now, Wang Xiaofei, as an entrepreneur, is not very successful, and setbacks are still around. At the same time that Ma Liuji was exposed to be listed in Hong Kong, Wang Xiaofei had an additional execution information of 7.48 million yuan in his name, and a total of more than 10 million shares were frozen.
Wang Xiaofei must have hated the evaluation of "Ma Bao Nan", he said that when he first returned to China, "I always had a stubbornness in my heart, I wanted to prove my ability, and I wanted to find a way of my own." He also once said, "The most annoying thing to hear is when someone says that their family runs a restaurant." But in 2020, he let go of his prejudice against restaurants, took over Zhang Lan's mantle, and took charge of Ma Liuji.
Wang Xiaofei's current life theme is "reconciliation", reconciling with entrepreneurs' dreams, reconciling with her mother, and reconciling with her ex-wife who has been scolded in the air. After calmly facing her fate, Wang Xiaofei's life began to bottom out at the age of 40**.
For the second generation who have just seen the cruelty of the real world in the cycle, the outside world does not expect them to surpass the height of their parents, bow to fate, and reconcile with themselves like Wang Xiaofei is not ashamed.
I have a special thank you for one person, our beloved former chairman, Ms. Zhang Lan, who is also my mother. In a speech a few days ago, Wang Xiaofei said.