Agricultural giant since 1983

Chapter 184: Future Opponent

"A few yogurts from Danone." What Li Lei saw on the menu was a product from the French food giant Danone. A small bottle of yogurt costs ten yuan.

After the yogurt came out, Li Lei opened it and tasted it. The taste was not bad, but how many people in China can afford it?

"How much does this thing sell outside?" Li Lei asked Wang Shi. The price of a five-star hotel must be more expensive than outside.

"I really don't know, have you seen this thing in the store?" Wang Shi shook his head and looked back at his subordinates.

The subordinates frowned and recalled it, and finally someone remembered it, "I saw it in a department store. A small bottle cost more than three yuan, and it's ten yuan here!"

It has tripled. This is the routine operation of a five-star hotel. Li Lei nodded, but even so, ordinary people still can't afford it. Nowadays, ordinary workers only spend dozens of dollars a month. Who is willing to spend three dollars for a small bottle? yogurt?Even if the workers and cadres in the special zone earn more than other places, it is estimated that not many people buy it, right?
Things are good things. Yogurt has high nutritional value. Many people in later generations will buy it for their children. But at that time, a box of yogurt was only a few yuan, which is not much more expensive than it is now, but the income of ordinary people is tens or hundreds of times. Compared with the growth of the two, a few dollars of yogurt is not worth mentioning.

"A factory opened in Guangzhou? Old Wang, it's still early anyway, why don't you lend me a car, and I'll go to Guangzhou for a visit in the next two days?" Li Lei said, looking at the factory address on the bottle.

"Small things, I will arrange a guide for you, Xiao Ma, you are from Guangzhou and are familiar with the local conditions. I will accompany Li Dong to Guangzhou for a few days!" Now Li Lei is a major shareholder of Vanke, so Wang Shi also changed his address and called him Li Donglai.

The next day, Li Lei, accompanied by Xiao Ma, went to Guangzhou in the car arranged by Wang Shi. According to the address on the bottle, he found the first factory set up by Danone in China.

In 1973, BSN married Danone-Gervie and became the largest food manufacturing group in France. Its products include beer, mineral water, children's food and other fields. The famous Evian mineral water is their product, with annual sales amounted to 14 billion euros.

In 1983, the founder of Danone, Anthony Reeb, came to China to look for opportunities. Like all foreigners who came to China, he also ran out and climbed the Great Wall. He left a photo on the Great Wall. In the photo, he used a spoon to serve The yogurt in the cup is ready to be tasted by the timid little Chinese girl beside her. This is the first time that Danone yogurt has approached the sight of Chinese consumers.

In 1987, Danone officially entered China. The first stop was Guangzhou, an outpost of reform and opening up, and Guangzhou Danone Yogurt Company was established. It was also the first foreign-funded enterprise to bring stirred yogurt to China.

When he got outside the factory, Xiao Ma got out of the car and went there to try it out. The doorman politely rejected his request to go in for a visit, but he was not discouraged. He found the public phone of the street store, made a few calls, and then accompanied Li Lei Wait slowly in the car.

After about half an hour, a young man in a white shirt came out. The small road was very wide, and he quickly found an acquaintance who worked at Danone Yogurt Company.

It is still impossible to go in and visit, but this young man named Chen Xinping can introduce the current situation of Danone to Li Lei.

After get off work, a few people found a restaurant, asked for a quiet private room, and chatted while eating, "Brother Chen, working in a foreign company must be a good life, right?"

"Hey, the salary is higher than before, but it's hard to feel at ease? How many people can afford a bottle of yogurt for more than three yuan? I'm afraid that the company will go bankrupt in the future!" Chen Xinping was in pain and joy, The happiness is due to the high wages of foreign companies, and the pain is that the future of the company cannot be seen clearly.

"The price is expensive on the one hand, on the other hand yogurt must be refrigerated. Think about it, how many freezers are there in Guangzhou now? The popsicles are still sold in wooden boxes and wrapped in quilts! I ran for several days, The freezers were only found in a few high-end hotels such as the White Swan."

"My colleagues in Shanghai were even worse. A sales manager thought that Nanjing Road is the most prosperous place in China. Is there anything on Nanjing Road? As a result, he ran from the east end of Nanjing Road to the west end, but he only found a freezer, and they refused to take it." His yogurt! Hey, if this goes on, I still don’t know how many months’ wages I can get!”

Danone chose the same wrong product at the wrong time. Yogurt is not only expensive, but also needs the support of the supporting system, but this kind of support is lacking in China now. Few stores are equipped with freezers, so their products are not well received. became a natural thing.

If this is replaced by other products of Danone, mineral water is definitely not suitable. Who can accept drinking water and spend money now?There is no kettle in the office of that unit?Beer may be similar, but in this regard, Danone has no advantage compared with Japanese and German companies.

But Danone has one of its biggest advantages, that is, it is rich enough to persist even if it loses money. By 1990, Danone's yogurt had already occupied 60% of the Guangdong market.

Then Danone takes advantage of its own advantages to stare at every Chinese company that has become or is about to become a leader in the dairy beverage industry, and then uses capital power to acquire them in the form of holding shares, equity participation, and control of management rights.

In 1992, Danone and Bright jointly established the Shanghai yogurt and fresh-keeping milk project, and became the third largest shareholder of Bright Dairy after increasing its holdings several times.

In 1996, Danone and Hong Kong Peregrine invested US$4500 million to form five joint ventures with Wahaha, with Danone holding 5% of the shares.

After the outbreak of the financial crisis in 1997, through internal transfers, Danone expanded its shareholding in the joint venture to 51%; then...then it was killed by Zong Qinghou.

Beginning in 2006, Wahaha and Danone launched a series of lawsuits at home and abroad, and finally reached a conclusion in 2007. Danone sold its shares to its Chinese partners and announced its departure.

At first glance, it seems that Zong Qinghou repelled the international capital and defended his own brand, but looking carefully at Wahaha's history, things are not that simple.

The reason why Zong Qinghou entered into a joint venture with Danone in the first place was to squeeze out state-owned assets, because Wahaha Group had 46% state-owned shares. At that time, it was not easy for private individuals to acquire state-owned shares, but it was much easier for foreign investors.

And now the lawsuit with Danone is to squeeze Danone out of the game, because Danone has no use value, and now it is time to make Wahaha its own so that its daughter can take over.

In addition to Wahaha, Danone has successively invested in Huiyuan, Mengniu, Robust, Meilin Zhengguanghe and other brands, occupying a 16.3% market share in the domestic soft drink market, ranking first.

In the process of buying shares, Danone frequently used methods. On the one hand, it would invite a large number of officials and corporate executives to travel and study in France; The process went fairly smoothly.

However, it is not enough to eat these companies. They have to adapt to the Chinese market. In this regard, Danone is as proud as other foreign giants. They underestimate the ability of local management and think that everything is their own best. The consequences can be imagined Got it.

In addition to Wahaha, conflicts with other companies have also emerged. One year after Danone took over, the five veterans of Robust, headed by the founder of Robust He Boquan, were kicked out of the management. .

Under the management of Danone, Robust failed to maintain development. By 2005, Robust suffered a loss of 1.57 million yuan.

This incident did not arouse Danone's vigilance, and even felt that it was a good thing to kick the Robust veteran away, so Danone's executives also showed off this incident when communicating with the person in charge of Bright Dairy.

The person in charge of Guangming wrote in his memoirs, "I patiently recorded his speech for nearly two hours. If there is such a thing as shameless in the world, isn't it shameless?"

This incident also aroused the vigilance of Guangming. After the lawsuit between Danone and Wahaha, it quickly cut off with Danone. It lost its initial dominance in the dairy industry and was caught up by Yili, Mengniu and other enterprises.

Other brands such as Huiyuan, Robust, and Meilin are also gradually disappearing, but their own brand Pulsation is developing well. Because of the lack of competitors, the market share has been very good. Until Red Bull and other functional drinks entered the Chinese market, Pulsation’s share fell.

After learning about Danone's situation in detail, Li Lei is relieved for the time being. In the short term, he and Danone do not form a competitive relationship, but in his business layout planning, the dairy industry is definitely an indispensable link, and sooner or later it will still And Danone collided.

Among the foreign companies entering the Chinese market today, there are quite a few that will compete with Li Lei in the future. In addition to Danone, Nestle and Unilever also entered China this year.

Unilever set up a factory in Shanghai, but Nestlé went to the remote Northeast Shuangcheng. They seemed to be very patient and dispatched a professional team to teach local farmers in Shuangcheng the techniques of raising cows and collecting milk, and helped them build a factory. Set up a milk collection network and purchase system that can encourage farmers' enthusiasm.

It's a pity that I haven't heard of the role of Nestle's deployment in Shuangcheng in the future. It may be because they have taken too far ahead of the market. The domestic liquid milk market will not mature for more than ten years, and their preparations have begun. too early.

After the inspection in Guangzhou, Li Lei returned to the special zone. Under the leadership of Wang Shi, he entered the hall of the special zone and witnessed the history.

The banner hanging above the rostrum of the auditorium reads "the first public auction of land use rights in the Special Economic Zone". Representatives of enterprises, banks, and governments gathered in the audience. Under the witness of Chinese and foreign media, the first public auction of state-owned land use rights since the founding of New China held as scheduled.

"Old Wang, are you planning to take this piece of land too?" Li Lei asked.

"This piece is said to be an auction, but in fact the ownership has basically been determined. The real estate company of the special zone is determined to win this. I don't need to show off the limelight! Since there is the first time, there must be a second and third time. Second, the special zone is so big and there is so much land, I don't worry about not waiting for the opportunity!" Wang Shi was very calm.

"This time I came here to find out the way and get familiar with the process of land auction, so that you won't make mistakes when you encounter the right opportunity! In addition, I want you, the major shareholder, to take a look. The real estate market has great potential. I chose it for our company. The direction of development is definitely no problem!"

"I still think it's a big deal, so it's this!" Li Lei smiled. No one knows better than him how fast the future development of China's real estate market will be.

On the one hand, it is the demand for development. China's urbanization is constantly strengthening. Now the urbanization ratio is only 20.00%2, and the urban population is only over 2017 million; and by 60.00, the urbanization ratio is close to 8%, and the urban population has exploded. increased to more than [-] million.

Newcomers to the city need a place to live, and the original urban population needs to improve their living environment. With such a huge demand in front of us, it is impossible for the real estate market to not be hot.

On the other hand, it is the impact of tax and fee reform. After the tax-sharing system, the local government's revenue has been greatly reduced, but its expenditure has continued to increase. So where should we find new sources of revenue?

It is impossible to directly increase taxes, so indirect taxes can only be adopted, so real estate has become the best choice.

A little understanding of real estate costs will make it clear that construction costs don’t cost much, and land auction costs, financing costs, taxes, etc., are the big ones.

Among these costs, land auction income and taxes are of course not to be mentioned. In addition, developers and home buyers get loans from banks, and the government can also obtain a lot of income. There is just too much money to take.

This is still the direct money. If you include indirect income, such as taxes and fees collected from building materials companies, design institutes, supervision companies, construction companies, advertising companies and other related companies, there will be more.

Therefore, real estate is equivalent to the modern version of the salt tax, almost no one can escape, and the cost is much lower than direct taxation. Which government does not like it?

Just as Wang Shi expected, after 17 minutes of bidding rounds, the special zone real estate company finally got the right to use this 525 square meter residential land for 8588 years at a price of 50 million yuan, an average of less than 600 yuan per square meter.

When the auctioneer finally dropped the hammer, the audience burst into applause. Developers like Wang Shi saw opportunities to make a fortune, government officials saw new income channels, and banks saw loan interest rates. Everyone was happy, and they couldn't wait to start the feast. .

After watching the auction and expressing his support for Wang Shi's focus on real estate, Li Lei's mission in this special zone trip is considered complete.

He went to New Century Company for a while, and went to Shenzhen University to see Shi Yuzhu. Before leaving, he went to another place in the special zone, where his future opponent was.

(End of this chapter)