Do you remember 1992?That year, an old man went to the south to see around and set the direction for the later reform and opening up. It was also that year that the national automobile production exceeded one million for the first time, and Shanghai Volkswagen Santana rolled off the assembly line with 200 cars a day and was still in short supplyFAW-Volkswagen Jetta drove off the production line, ready to start another legend;Second Automobile Citroen Fukang was officially put on the market, and the planned production capacity is more than that of the North and South Volkswagen combinedFurther south, Hainan also brought in Mazda.
It seems that the market is the world of joint venture cars, but the people are not idle, the rich second generation Wei Jianjun is imitating the Duke of Nissan, the poor boy Li Shufu looked at the Mercedes-Benz running on the street, and four years later spelled out Geely No. 1, engineer Yin Tongyue is still working as a workshop director in FAW, and is about to receive the main task of going to Wuhu to engage in cars.
Four words: the stars shine.
But this year, all the limelight in China's auto industry was stolen by a Shenyang-based car company, and the socialist camp went to the first company listed in the United States, the world-class Niu X, which is called Brilliance.
In the decade since, Brilliance was once regarded as the hope of China's private car companies, known as China SAIC, and is the only private enterprise joint venture partner of B B A in China, with its two independent brands, Zhonghua and Jinbei, both of which are leaders in their respective fields.
But in 2002, the company's founder, Yang Rong, was forced to leave, and Brilliance itself quickly declined a few years later. Even today, if you search for Brilliance, all you can find is the news of bankruptcy and the acquisition of shares by BMW, and the independent brand is all killed, there are too many stories to talk about.
So let's talk about Brilliance, we should take Brilliance's listing and Yangrong's departure as the boundary, divide it into three phases, and talk about how Brilliance came to be, how it became popular, and how it has no land.
Hello everyone, I'm Master Huang, everyone give a thumbs up, take the cards, and let's drive up to the second floor.
Yangrong, Jinbei
Talking about Brilliance can't avoid two things, the founder Yang Rong, and the Jin Cup that makes a fortune.
Let's talk about Yangrong first. Before Brilliance, the outside world had only one word for this person: enigma. Which people?I don't know, biography?I don't know, how did I get home?I don't know. Even the name Yangrong is rumored to be a pseudonym after Yangrong's development, which means relying on finance.
These are the results of his deliberate ambiguity and even concealment, in his own words: Hua Chen's background is not good, and some things have to be mysterious. He is like a demon who jumped out of the crack in the stone and stirred up the Chinese car market, but when the historians talked, this man who always combed his big back and thick eyebrows was a strongman who couldn't get around.
But according to Yang Rong's speeches on various occasions, the generally convincing life trajectory is probably like this. He should be a native of Beiguo Town, Jiangyin, Jiangsu, with four brothers, and the eldest brother Yang Ao helped him a lot later. In his early years, when he was still called Yang Yong, he worked as a chef, opened a shop, worked as a salesman, went to Vietnam to fight, and was almost disabled. The old people's evaluation of him is that he is short in stature but full of heaven, with long drooping ears, and he looks like a big man at first glance.
The old people are right, I don't know when Yangrong, who returned to his hometown again, already looks like a boss. But from this time on, people no longer understand how Yangrong makes money, but it is generally speculated that he should take advantage of the special period of "** dual-track system" to become a fallen master and make a small fortune.
During this period, Yang Rong got to know many nobles, and the battlefield also shifted from reselling physical objects to playing for money. In 1989, Yang Rong ran to Shanghai with a principal of 4 million, and before China established a perfect regulatory system, he played with it fiercely and made a lot of money. No one can say exactly how the 4 million came about, and no one can say how much money he made. The ** boss of the same period as him, as well as Mu Zhong, is the cow man who wanted to blow up the Himalayas, and later exchanged canned food for airplanes.
When Yangrong made a lot of money in Shanghai, in Shenyang, Liaoning, the other protagonist of the story, Jin Bei, was worried every day. At that time, Jinbei was established for 5 years, and just implemented the joint-stock system, from Shenyang *** company to Jinbei Automobile Co., Ltd., but in the bones it is still a broken factory composed of 96 repair shops and parts factories. Although Toyota's Hiace technology was introduced, due to the fluctuation of the yen exchange rate, the car lost money when it was built, and it lost money even more if it was not built, and the only promising asset was the 1 million shares that were tried to be issued in 1988**.
In order to survive, the main task of the factory director Zhao Xiyou has also changed from selling cars to selling **. But until the end of the 80s, there were at least 460,000 shares worth 46 million ** that were not sold, and it was these ** that made the down-and-out Jinbei and the spring breeze proudly Yangrong connected.
The turning point came in 1990, a year when global oil prices soared, the domestic monetary system tightened, and there was a depression. As mentioned earlier, Yangrong met a lot of nobles during his time in Shanghai, one of whom pointed to him, if he wants to do a big business, he has to take a long-term view, find a real enterprise package to go to foreign listing, much faster than you make money, there are many enterprises with a good industrial foundation but dying, the whole one.
In this way, the golden cup entered Yangrong's field of vision. In the winter of 1990, Yangrong went north to Shenyang, found Zhao Xiyou directly, and opened his mouth to cover all the remaining **.
The negotiation process is not detailed, in short, one looks at the qualifications and the other looks at the money, and the two sides are very happy to reach a cooperation. But in fact, Yangrong is only interested in the Shenyang car factory under Jinbei Automobile, although it is not well-known, but the factory has basically realized automation, and the degree of advancement is comparable to that of the North and South Volkswagen. And the aforementioned Toyota Hiace is also produced here.
In Yangrong's view, once the Jinbei sea lion with international level goes offline, it will inevitably kill indiscriminately in the domestic market. Yang Rong accurately predicted the future, but a practical problem was in front of him: how to buy the ** of the golden cup?
Brilliance Empire
Many people think that Brilliance is just a company, but in fact, behind the name Brilliance, there is a huge financial empire, yes, a financial empire, not a car empire. Things have to start when Yangrong is preparing to receive Jinbei Automobile**.
You must know that Jinbei is a state-owned enterprise, and if Yangrong buys it in his personal name, the hat of "embezzlement of state-owned assets" will definitely not run. When he was entangled, under the guidance of another nobleman, Yang Rong went to Bermuda to register a shell company for receiving Jinbei**: Brilliance Holdings, headquartered in Hong Kong.
This kind of operation is of course common today, but at the time, it was a stroke of genius, and Yangrong's Brilliance Empire was also born.
At the beginning of 1991, Yang Rong and Zhao Xiyou continued to follow the guidance of the nobles, wanting to package Jinbei Automobile as a whole to be listed overseas, but there were too many burdens in hospitals and kindergartens, and it was easy to get the recognition of international capital if the Shenyang car factory was spun off and listed separately.
There was no way, Yangrong had no choice but to register a company called Huabo Finance in Hong Kong, pull another noble Hainan Huayin, and a joint venture with Jinbei Automobile to establish Jinbei Bus with a registered capital of 29.98 million US dollars, a difference of 20,000 US dollars, to avoid all kinds of scrutiny. And this Jinbei bus is the predecessor of the big Jinbei that we are familiar with today, Jinbei Automobile is the controlling party, pay attention to the difference between the two.
With Jinbei Bus, Yangrong began to work harder to operate overseas listings, and even went to the New York Stock Exchange after having chosen. However, in the process, there was a big problem with Hainan Huayin's funds, and Jinbei Sea Lion was not able to be mass-produced. Yang Rong had no choice but to settle for the next best thing, first listing in China to solve the problem of funds, so he went to Hong Kong and registered Yugang International, but he also failed to succeed in listing in China, and things fell into a deadlock.
It wasn't until 1992 that the old man's speech ended the controversy between the surname and the surname society, and making money and developing became the main theme. Yangrong's overseas listing was active again, and Yugang International was renamed Brilliance Group, and he traveled back and forth between China and the United States many times, entrusting people to carry out overseas listings, and once again emphasizing the difference between Brilliance Group and Brilliance Holdings.
But the problem has arisen again, Jinbei Automobile is a state-owned enterprise, and it went to the United States to be listed, and neither China nor the United States can agree. So what if the equity is taken out and listed in the name of Yangrong personally?No, at that time, the New York Stock Exchange stipulated that individuals must provide detailed financial proof for listing in their names.
Things have reached an impasse again, but there is not much else in Yangrong, that is, there are many nobles. There are two nobles who are in Beijing at this time, and want to organize the "China Financial Education Development Conference", Yang Rong heard the spirit: if you can put the Jinbei bus under the name of the ** meeting, and let the latter become a shareholder, and then use the identity of a "non-governmental non-profit organization" to register the company, and then take it to the New York Stock Exchange to be listed, one can avoid the review of the United States, the second will not be detained as the loss of state-owned assets, and the third can also give investors the whole fresh, killing three birds with one stone.
Yang Rong was so excited about his genius idea that he couldn't do it, and after consulting relevant people to confirm that the plan was feasible, he did implement it. But Yang Rong didn't expect that it was this genius design that became a knife to cut himself in the future.
In May 1992, Yangrong invested 2 million yuan in the name of Brilliance Group through Huabo Finance, together with 100,000 yuan of funds from the Education Department of the People's Bank of China, to jointly establish the China Financial Education Development Association. In this way, ** will still be a state-owned asset in China, but in foreign countries, the accountant will determine the attribution based on the actual capital contribution.
In this way, Yangrong has a perfect listing shell with a red hat. At the beginning of June, Yangrong went to Bermuda again, and in the name of the first meeting, established Brilliance China Automobile Holdings, which indirectly participated in Jinbei Bus through Huabo Finance, and then went to the United States to apply for listing, which is what we later knew as "Brilliance Auto".
Because it is the first company to hold, Brilliance Auto will be listed in the name of "state-owned enterprise concept stocks", which is a precedent on the New York Stock Exchange and will definitely be popular. But the problem has reappeared, when the original establishment of Jinbei Bus, in order to meet the requirements of state-owned assets holding, Jinbei Automobile, Huabo Finance, Hainan Huayin accounted for shares, but the United States required Brilliance Auto must have more than 51% control over its assets, and Yangrong counted Huabo Finance and Hainan Huayin, a total of only 40%, what to do?
You may not understand what foreign ownership of 51% of the shares meant at the time. After the old man approved the form of joint venture, the red line is that the proportion of foreign capital cannot exceed half, not to mention the national key industry such as automobiles, and I don't know how many people can win the black yarn hat of this 1%.
But it is still more noble people who are easy to do, and it is still the noble person who matched the bridge at the beginning, and gave the green light on the grounds of "supporting the first domestic company to go public internationally". In hindsight, it should have been tacitly approved by a higher level.
In July, through the above-mentioned complex share exchange operations between companies, Brilliance Auto's equity in Jinbei Bus successfully reached the standard line of 51%, clearing the last obstacle before listing, and Yangrong also firmly grasped the control of Brilliance Auto and Jinbei Bus. At the beginning of August, Yangrong obtained the approval of 6 departments, obtained official approval for overseas listing, and began a roadshow in the United States.
What everyone didn't expect was that the title of "the first share of socialist countries" was extremely popular in the United States, and more than 60 million shares were sold in a month after the 5 million shares that were originally planned to be issued. After its official listing on October 9, 1992, Brilliance's stock price skyrocketed from $16 to more than $20. As the first Chinese team since the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the New York Stock Exchange, Brilliance has been in the limelight, and even the official media of China and the United States have made a large report.
What's even more unexpected is that three days after Brilliance's listing, an elderly man wearing glasses came to power and continued to pursue reform and opening up, and Brilliance's stock price soared to about $34 again, and even became one of the world's top ten best financing projects selected by authoritative financial magazines that year.
Before the successful overseas listing, the long-shelved domestic listing plan of Jinbei Bus was also suddenly successful. It was even a high-quality stock at that time, and the stock price skyrocketed from 10 yuan to more than 170 yuan on the opening day. During the period, Yangrong also reaped a surprise, at that time, the policy stipulated that foreign capital could not hold domestic listed companies, Yangrong with Brilliance Holdings received 4.6 million shares of Jinbei Bus ** must all be sold, you can calculate, how much money he made from it.
There is also a small episode here, Brilliance's overseas listing name should have been brilliance China automotive holding ltd, referred to as BCA, but the New York Stock Exchange already has a BCA, Yangrong finally decided to be the first in the country and changed BCA to CBA, which can be seen that Yangrong still loves this land, but in the end it ......
From the establishment of Brilliance Holdings to the successful listing at home and abroad, I have lost count of how many times I have used it, but how many twists and turns have I experienced. In short, after a series of operations, Yangrong used a bunch of enterprises with no actual business at all, with the qualification of Jinbei Automobile, established Jinbei Bus and Brilliance Automobile, and listed them on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. The financial operation in this is far from being as simple as I said, I am not from a financial class, but I just tried my best to tell it, and the complexity of it, I am afraid that only Yang Rong and the people around him can explain clearly.
In the United States and Hong Kong, Brilliance Auto and Jinbei Bus have raised a large amount of funds, and with money, the next ten years will become the most proud moment for Yangrong. In the next episode, let's talk in detail about how Yangrong operated the Jinbei bus to the first place in China, and how he built the legendary Chinese car. I'm Master Huang, we'll see you next time!
The next story moves to Brilliance (2).