Seven years after stepping down as chairman of Spring Airlines, Spring Airlines' founder, Wang Zhenghua, recently donated most of his shares to his eldest son, Wang Yu.
Spring Airlines (601021.)SH) recently announced that it received a notice from its controlling shareholder, Shanghai Spring International Travel Service (Group)**, hereinafter referred to as "Spring and Autumn International Travel Service") and its concerted actor Spring and Autumn Charter Flight, that Wang Zhenghua, Wang Yu and Wang Wei, shareholders of Spring International Travel Service and Spring Charter Flight, have signed an equity gift agreement, stipulating that Wang Zhenghua will donate part of the equity held by Spring International Travel Service and Spring Charter to Wang Yu.
Born in 1944, Wang Zhenghua has just turned 80 this year, Wang Yu is his eldest son, who is now 54 years old, and Wang Wei is the second son, five years younger than Wang Yu.
Before the implementation of the equity gift, Wang Zhenghua, Wang Yu and Wang Wei respectively held Spring and Autumn International Travel Service. 7894% equity, as well as spring and autumn charter flights. 64% equity.
After the implementation of the equity gift, Wang Zhenghua, Wang Yu and Wang Wei respectively held Spring and Autumn International Travel Service. 7894% equity, as well as spring and autumn charter flights. 64% equity.
This means that Wang Zhenghua transferred most of his shares to his eldest son Wang Yu, leaving only 1% for himself, while the second son Wang Wei's shareholding remained unchanged.
In fact, as early as seven years ago, Wang Zhenghua, who was 73 years old at the time, chose to gradually fade out of specific business management and handed over the business of the aviation sector to his eldest son. In March 2017, Wang Yu officially succeeded Wang Zhenghua as chairman of Spring Airlines.
Last year, other management of the company said to me, your eldest son is 47 years old, you can't let him be 60 years old. Regarding the reason for resigning from the position of chairman of Spring Airlines, Wang Zhenghua responded to the first financial reporter at the time.
Today, Wang Yu is the largest shareholder of Spring Airlines' parent company, Spring International Travel Service, and is also a director of Spring International Travel Service. Wang Zhenghua is still the chairman of Spring International Travel Service, and his second son, Wang Wei, is the president of Spring International Travel Service, in charge of the company's tourism business, and also serves as a director of Spring Airlines.
With the successive changes in management rights and equity, Wang Zhenghua, who single-handedly created the "Spring and Autumn Day", has become more and more clear.
Wang Zhenghua talked about why he gave up his rights and shares.
On the afternoon of March 1, in the dim corridor of the office building of Spring Airlines, the reporter met Wang Zhenghua, who had just finished a meeting.
I'm just doing some miscellaneous things now, aviation is Wang Yu's work, and tourism's work is Wang Wei's work. Wang Zhenghua said with a smile that he usually plants trees, does tai chi, and researches the metaverse.
At present, Wang Zhenghua is still the director of Spring International Travel Service and Spring Airlines, and many of the "miscellaneous" things he refers to are actually related to the future, such as personally forming several small teams to study the metaverse, blockchain, and the operation and management of scenic spots.
As the leader of the group, I will still think about the future," Wang Zhenghua said, "I have always said that to be a leader do not think about today, the main energy is to think about tomorrow, especially in strategy, with 70% of the energy to think about tomorrow, 10% of the energy to think about the future, 20% of the energy to deal with today's things." ”
Although he has transferred the chairman of the airline and most of the group's shares to his son, Wang Zhenghua said that his position as chairman of the Spring and Autumn International Travel Service will continue to be done. "I told them that I still have to agree to all the major policies and important decisions of the company, and secondly, I want to know the appointment of key cadres, and I have the right to know and put forward opinions, but the final decision is still made by them. Now that I have put all the responsibility on my son, I will gradually step back. People will always get old, there will be a day when they are confused, don't wait until you are confused to think about the handover, it will be too late. ”
As for the recent transfer of most of his equity to his son, Wang Zhenghua said that he also considered the same, "Don't really wait until you can't do it, and then engage in equity matters, it will be easy to mess up." After the age of 70, I felt that my physical strength and energy were not as good as before, and at that time I decided to carry out a smooth transition of the company, and now I have also handed over the equity. So far, my son is doing okay. ”
Inheritance: "enough is good" cost control.
Wang Zhenghua's satisfaction with his son comes from the outstanding performance of Spring Airlines. According to the just-released performance forecast, Spring Airlines is expected to make a profit of 2.1 billion to 2.4 billion yuan in 2023, which is not only a significant turnaround compared to 2022, but also the most profitable airline in China. If you compare it with yourself, Spring Airlines' net profit in 2023 has also exceeded that of 2019 before the epidemic.
This is the seventh year that the eldest son, Wang Yu, has been the chairman of Spring Airlines and has led the achievements of Spring Airlines.
In 23, the domestic market has recovered to the pre-epidemic level, and we have further improved our cost control, "For the reason why the three major airlines in 2023 are still losing money, Spring Airlines has turned around significantly, Wang Yu analyzed to reporters.
Aviation was not Wang Yu's first career. His first job as a railway major was in the railway system, and then he went to the United States to study, when his father only gave him 50,000 yuan.
I didn't give him any more money during my 8 years in the United States, and after returning to China, I not only came back with two master's diplomas, but also earned $20,000 for myself. Wang Zhenghua was very satisfied with his son at that time.
After returning to China, Wang Yu did not directly enter Spring Airlines, but worked for seven years in a number of consulting companies such as Roland Berger, BearingPoint, and Hewitt before he began to participate in the operation and management of Spring Airlines.
At that time, the Spring and Autumn Period advocated the culture of "picking the door", and Wang Zhenghua often said that "half of the money is earned, and half is saved".
For his father's thrifty culture, Wang Yu's understanding is that "enough is good", for example, he felt that it was enough to drive a polo car to commute to work, and later changed to a Passat in order to receive customers. Another example is to go to London to attend the International Aviation Forum, he will fly economy class like his father, and after the meeting, he will take the subway and live in the basement with his colleagues.
Since taking over the seal of Spring Airlines' chairman from his father seven years ago, Mr. Wang's office has not changed — a room of less than 20 square meters is compactly packed with three desks, and the word "vice president" is labeled on the uneven door. Since joining Spring Airlines in 2008 as vice president, Wang Yu has worked in this "simple" room, with the other two desks belonging to the company's president, Wang Zhijie, and his younger brother, Wang Wei.
This is also the common working environment for all Spring Airlines executives: the narrow hallway is dimly lit all year round, and it is too dark to turn on at most two lights.
Such a concept of "saving money to the bones" is also deeply rooted in the daily operation and management of Spring and Autumn Period. As the first low-cost airline in China, Spring Airlines' main business costs, management costs are 50% lower, financial costs are 60% lower, and marketing costs are 78% lower than the industry average compared to the industry average before the pandemic. This is also the confidence that Spring and Autumn can provide an average of 30% cheaper air tickets than full-service airlines.
After Wang Yu took over, the requirements for cost control continued unabated. Since the pandemic, Spring Airlines has made great efforts to save costs, including continuous improvement of algorithms, improving the efficiency of scheduling and scheduling, postponing unnecessary costs and procurement, and adjusting control measures every three months.
Now more and more airlines are adopting our way, in the pursuit of lower costs in operation, we are also constantly seeking change and refinement, with better means to reduce costs, through intelligence, information to improve efficiency," Wang Yu told reporters, "such as the company's revenue management system, through the research and development of automatic repositioning, in the case of increased flights, you can do not increase or increase less." Fuel costs have risen sharply since the pandemic, but our fuel deduction costs are much lower than in 2019. ”
Breakthrough: Use data for decision-making and refined management.
Every time he is interviewed by reporters, the head of a listed company with a market value of more than 50 billion yuan is always gentle and restrained. As Wang Zhenghua's eldest son, Wang Yu's speech and demeanor make people not realize the superiority of the "rich second generation" or the radicality of the "second generation", and even many old employees in the Spring and Autumn Period will evaluate their new boss, not as domineering as "Mr. Wang".
But Wang Yu actually has his own ideas and execution. While inheriting his father's cost to the extreme, he is more inclined to "reduce costs" by improving efficiency, so he is more detailed than his father in terms of fine management.
For example, in the matter of improving the flight regularity rate and aircraft utilization, Wang Yu personally led various departments to formulate detailed KPI indicators and continuously tracked the implementation results.
"For example, we found that there are many cases of delayed boarding of international flights, and after analyzing the data, we found that there are more female passengers, mainly buying things in duty-free shops, so we sent people to guard the duty-free shops to remind customers, and this crowd tactic is very effective." ”
Just like solving the problem of international flight delays through data analysis, Wang Yu, who has worked in a consulting company for many years, likes to evaluate the business situation of enterprises through big data and make various decisions accordingly, such as for the business economy seat set up on the Spring and Autumn plane, he asked how to further optimize it through data performance, and how to meet the needs of business guests by adjusting the product content of the business economy seat.
Our philosophy is similar, but in terms of management style, I prefer to make decisions through numbers, and he is more entrepreneurial," Wang Yu describes how he differs from his father.
In the daily operation and management, Wang Yu also has times when he is inconsistent with his father. For example, when Wang Zhenghua handed over the position of chairman of Spring Airlines, he once warned his son: "Don't be in a hurry to innovate, don't be in a hurry to become bigger." To this day, he still hopes that Spring Airlines should develop more slowly.
The development of an enterprise only seeks his existence, don't care about his speed, but they still care about speed now, so I always pour cold water on them," Wang Zhenghua told reporters, to do business to concentrate on doing what is going to be done now, to do a good job, to be better, it is necessary to maintain a certain amount of energy, physical strength, qualifications and financial resources, if the development is too fast, the energy will not be able to take care of. "So I would suggest that Wang Yu develop more slowly, spend more energy on studying tomorrow, studying the future, studying new models, new markets, and new competitors, but if they have to do it, I oppose it three times and it is invalid, and I will still support them to do it. ”
Regarding the company's development speed, Wang Yu does feel that it is still a little slower now, because not many aircraft have been introduced in the past two years due to the epidemic.
China's civil aviation has slowed down to single digits in 2019 before the epidemic, but I think we can be a little faster than the industry average," Wang Yu told reporters, "This is mainly based on Spring Airlines' positioning considerations, our customers are mainly from tourism and visiting relatives and friends, in terms of market demand for personal travel, I think there is still no problem with double-digit growth, there are still many people in the central and western regions who have not taken a plane, and their travel demand is also very large." ”
As for his father's suggestion to "develop slowly", Wang Yu replied: "We will not do things beyond our ability, and we must make money for development, and it will definitely not work if we don't make money." ”