Jingzhu’s four entrepreneurial ventures

On August 23, Haima 7X was officially launched. Standing next to this unique model, Jing Zhu, the proud chairman of Haima Motors, said that Haima Motors' fourth venture will be fully intelligent, connected, electrified and inclusive.

At this time, 32 years have passed since I first started my business.

First Entrepreneurship: Haichuang Haiqiu

In 1988, the country established Hainan Province and Hainan Special Economic Zone, and 100,000 young people came to Hainan, and Jingzhu was one of them. Also in that year, Hainan Automobile Manufacturing Plant was officially established.

The establishment of Hainan Automobile Manufacturing Plant not only filled the gap in Hainan's automobile industry, but also provided a stage for young talents.

At the Hainan Automobile Manufacturing Plant, Jing Zhu started out as a technician and served successively as workshop director, assistant to the factory director, and acting factory director. Later, he also served as director of the Hainan Provincial Automobile Office.

It was also during this period that the Hainan Automobile Manufacturing Plant formed a joint venture with the Japanese Mazda Motor Company and successively produced products such as the Haima HMC6470. However, due to national automobile industry policies, products cannot leave the island without a "birth certificate" and can only be sold within the island.

In 1995, the Hainan Mazda joint venture was terminated. In 1996, the China Southern Automobile Co., Ltd. project that had been negotiated for many years was shelved indefinitely. The company with several hundred employees has a debt of more than 600 million yuan, is suffering serious losses and is insolvent. The Hainan Automobile Manufacturing Plant, which was established seven years ago, is on the verge of bankruptcy.

That year, in Baoding, Hebei, 2,500 kilometers away from Hainan, 32-year-old Wei Jianjun entered the automobile industry from an unexpected angle. At that time, there were many players in the market, and the competition was extremely fierce. Everyone wanted to get a piece of the car market.

However, Great Wall did not join in the fun. Wei Jianjun chose the blue ocean market of pickup trucks. "Great Wall pickup trucks change a lot every year and change a little every three months. They always maintain a sense of freshness, making the car fashionable and stylish. To a certain extent, Great Wall Motors has led the demand for pickup trucks in the Chinese market." In the future. Recalling this experience, Wei Jianjun was quite proud. With its pickup truck model, Great Wall has established a firm foothold in the domestic market, standing out from many vehicle manufacturers and becoming the focus of that round of new vehicle manufacturers.

Second Entrepreneurship: Struggle for Equity

31-year-old Jingzhu was appointed as the director of Hainan Automobile Manufacturing Plant, starting Haima Motor’s second venture.

In 1998, the Ministry of Finance transferred 100% of the state-owned assets of Hainan Automobile Manufacturing Plant to FAW Group through asset transfer, and changed its name to FAW Hainan Automobile Co., Ltd.

Jingzhu was unwilling to be transferred to the FAW Group, so the Hainan Provincial Party Committee added him as vice president of the Hainan Provincial General Chamber of Commerce (Federation of Industry and Commerce), and the Organization Department of the Provincial Party Committee managed his files and reserved them for future use.

At this time, Jingzhu had actually been eliminated from FAW Hainan, but he did not give up there. Later, while preparing for the full-time doctoral degree at Hunan University, he raised funds everywhere, organized hundreds of old employees to form a stock-holding meeting, and established the private Haima Group.

After the establishment of the private Haima Group, it first restarted its cooperation with Japan's Mazda, then acquired the "*ST Qiongjinpan" that was on the verge of delisting, and injected the assets of the private Haima Automobile Company into the listed company. This completes the connection with the capital market.

In 2004, at the request of Hainan Province and FAW Group, the private Haima Automobile Company and FAW Hainan Automobile Co., Ltd. completed the merger to establish FAW Haima Automobile Co., Ltd. FAW Group, Haima Group and the Hainan Provincial Government each Holds 49, 49 and 2.

Although FAW and Haima reunited, it was difficult to heal the rift once it had occurred. Coupled with Mazda's interference, the relationship between the two parties quickly deteriorated.

After the establishment of FAW Haima, Mazda required the joint venture company to merge the sales rights of FAW Haima and FAW Sedan into FAW Mazda Auto Sales Company, of which FAW Haima only held a small stake. At the same time, Mazda also asked FAW Haima to give up its purchasing rights and localization rights. ?

This means that FAW Group and Mazda only want to use FAW Haima as a production workshop, which is absolutely unacceptable to Jingzhu.

In this way, the fate of FAW Haima and Mazda came to an end.

At the end of 2006, after the cooperation between the two parties expired, FAW Haima no longer had the right to use the Mazda brand.

The third venture: heading north to the Central Plains

In 2007, the frustrated Jingzhu left Hainan and led his team north to Henan, arriving at a village 130 kilometers west of Lankao, his hometown in Henan. In Zhengzhou, it took Jingzhu three years from the acquisition of Zhengzhou Light Vehicle to the completion and commissioning of the Zhengzhou base to establish a firm foothold in his hometown of Henan.

At the same time, he studied under economist Li Yining and studied for a PhD in economics at Peking University. Li Yining was very satisfied with his disciple. He once said that Jingzhu has broken down the barriers between the corporate world and academia and is one of my best students.

After 2007, the development of Haima Motors entered a new stage. Sales reached 30,000 vehicles in 2012, exceeded 60,000 vehicles in 2013, exceeded 90,000 vehicles in 2014, and hit a new high of 108,000 vehicles in 2015. The revenue of the Zhengzhou base exceeded 10 billion.

At the same time, the ambitious Jingzhu began to change his mind, and Haima Group launched a radical diversification strategy.

In 2008, Haima Finance Co., Ltd. was formally established; in 2015, Hainan Bank was formally established, and Haima Group became the second largest shareholder. As of 2018, Haima Group's business covers three major sectors: automobiles, financial holdings, and real estate. It has three subsidiaries, Haima Automobile, Haitian Financial Holdings, and Qingfeng Real Estate, with total assets of more than 40 billion yuan, and more than 40,000 group employees.

Among them, Haitian Financial Holdings has total assets of more than 10 billion yuan, and it controls and participates in Haima Finance Co., Ltd., Hainan Haitian Small Loan Co., Ltd., and many other financial institutions. Qingfeng Real Estate has total assets of more than 10 billion yuan, and its industries are located in Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Haikou, Kaifeng and other places. It has many subsidiaries such as Zhengzhou Real Estate, Kaifeng Real Estate, Wuhan Real Estate, and Hongyantang Hotel. The total assets of the financial and real estate sectors once surpassed the automobile sector, and people began to question the corporate attributes of Haima Group.

While the financial holding and real estate sectors are advancing by leaps and bounds, Haima Group’s automobile sector has fallen into an operating crisis. In 2017, Haima Automobile's revenue was 10.079 billion yuan, with a net loss of 994 million yuan; in 2018, its revenue was 5.298 billion yuan, with a net loss of 1.637 billion yuan. Within two years, Haima Automobile’s net loss exceeded 2.6 billion yuan, which exceeded Haima’s total profit in the previous 16 years.

What is sad is that Jingzhu had already smelled the danger long before the crisis broke out. In May 2016, Jing Zhu's new book "Asking" was officially published.

In the book, the scholar-businessman pointed out three key factors for Great Wall Motors' success. First, General Manager Wang Fengying is a marketing expert who has lived and worked on the front lines for nearly two decades; Second, Chairman Wei Jianjun, as a quality expert, has always regarded the factory as his home and strictly focused on quality; Third, there is a good strategic layout, with the category focusing on the pickup truck Fengjun , Haval SUV and Tengyi sedan series.

At the same time, Jing Zhu also keenly pointed out in the book that the biggest difference between Haima Motors and Great Wall Motors is that some senior cadres lack a sense of ownership, have been inactive for a long time, and have poor leadership and demonstration effects.

The Fourth Entrepreneurship: Rebuilding Haima

Although he took precautions, Jingzhu failed to prevent the crisis from happening.

In January 2019, Jingzhu published an article "Six Degrees of Wanxing". He stated in the article that Haima Motors is currently in a state of loss, and the responsibility is not as good as self-responsibility. He deeply feels that he has failed his shareholders and employees. I am determined to return to the front line, rebuild Haima, and lead my employees to start their own business for the fourth time.

Four months later, Jingzhu, who had passed his destiny, returned to the world and once again served as chairman of Haima Motors. Faced with Haima's dilemma, this PhD in economics with clear logic made an in-depth analysis.

In his opinion, there are five main reasons for Haima’s loss. The first is institutional constraints; the second is product investment failure; the third is inventory losses; the fourth is asset-heavy and the fifth is institutional rigidity.

For these five stubborn diseases, Jingzhu prescribed four good medicines.

The first is a flat system and efficient mechanism; the second is to shrink focus, cut off separation, and strive for first place with a segmented mentality; the third is that products will adhere to the category strategy; the fourth is to carry out new marketing.

At the same time, this battle-hardened automotive veteran showed fierce determination to kill. In April 2019, Haima Motor announced the sale of 117 idle properties in Shanghai and Haikou; in May, it announced the sale of 269 residences and 15 shops in Jinpan Industrial Development Zone, Haikou.

With this wave of "downsizing", Haima Motors "turned losses into profits" on its books. In 2019, Haima Automobile achieved operating income of 4.69 billion yuan and a net loss of 731 million yuan. Taking into account non-recurring gains and losses of 816 million yuan, Haima recorded a net profit of 85.19 million yuan, and this huge non-recurring gain and loss was almost entirely due to sales. House income.

However, the cash flow crisis plaguing Haima has not been resolved. In fiscal year 2019, Haima Automobile had a net cash outflow of 58 million yuan. As of the end of 2019, the company had only 1.408 billion yuan in cash on its books, a drop of 43% compared to 2015.

In 2018, Jingzhu was selected into the list of 100 outstanding private entrepreneurs in the 40 years of reform and opening up. Also selected together with him was Wei Jianjun of Great Wall Motors. In the 1990s, Jingzhu and Wei Jianjun started out almost at the same time. They came from rough backgrounds, not without savagery, drifting temperaments, perseverance and courage to win.

They can use the simplest method to get to the core of any business problem. They can strip away all moral connotations and return to the fundamentals of interest relationships. They can also break through everything without any inhibitions. rules and guidelines.

However, thirty years later, Wei Jianjun faced a global car company with a market value of over 100 billion, while Jingzhu faced a shaky local company. Although Wei Jianjun is still worried about whether Great Wall can survive next year, everyone knows that it is a professional entrepreneur's sense of crisis that has been trained in business wars for many years, and what is in front of Haima is a real life hanging by a thread.

Jing Zhu likes to run marathons. When he was fifty years old, he set a flag for himself: first he would stop dyeing his hair, and the next he would start running marathons. Now, he gets up at 5 o'clock every day, either runs ten kilometers, or does 200 push-ups, and then takes a cold shower.

“Running a business is like a marathon.” This entrepreneurial veteran who has been with Haima for 32 years declared that he will keep running like this.

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