Coquettish Rebirth

On July 7, the US "Fortune" magazine announced the list of "World Top 12" companies in 2006. A total of 500 Chinese companies were selected, and Sinopec rose from 22 to 31, ranking first among Chinese companies; State Grid Corporation, from No. 23 rose to No. 40; PetroChina rose from No. 32 to No. 46, while Huaxia Hi-Tech has just reached around No. 39. "China Youth Daily" in a comment titled "Inland Enterprises Selected as "Fortune 50" Makes People Shame", "How far can an enterprise develop to be called strong? In my opinion, 'a strong enterprise' 'Have at least the following factors: sustained and superior profitability, industry leadership through competition, core competitive advantages, a streamlined and high-quality talent team, strong innovation capabilities, sound rules and regulations, anti-risk capabilities, and internationalization According to these standards, we can almost judge without hesitation: among the 500 Chinese companies listed in the top 22, very few can be called "strong".

Compared with the performance of state-owned capital triumphantly and transnational capital in a duck's water, the weak private capital appears to be much weaker.After entering October, Niu Wenwen, editor-in-chief of "Chinese Entrepreneur", wrote some things on the personal blog of the Sherlock Holmes platform: At the recent gatherings of the business community, the most heard sentence is, "Who is preparing to sell the company recently?" Huh? This kind of private inquiry has almost become a standard "meeting greeting". Over the past year or so, more and more entrepreneurs have sold most of their own business shares, and the pace of transactions is accelerating and the scale is expanding. Counting your fingers, there are one or two acquisitions news almost every month. There are many buyers who are struggling to sell, and those who are running are also stared at by many buyers; I met at the forum meeting this month, but I haven’t seen each other in a few months , someone may have sold the company! These sold companies can be of any size in any industry or region, but the buyers are almost all multinational corporations or multinational capital.” The title of Niu Wenwen’s column is “Why Sell Lose the enterprise".In order to solve this question, he sent reporters to investigate a merger case.

On September 9, Uni-President Petrochemical Company, China's largest private lubricant manufacturer, sold 22% of its shares to Shell, making Shell the third largest company after PetroChina and Sinopec.Li Jia, general manager of Uni-President, told reporters: We are a private enterprise, without a strong resource background, we cannot sustain it.Uni-President Lubricant has been trapped by the raw material monopoly of PetroChina and Sinopec.In China, the most downstream retail terminal of the lubricating oil industry has been highly market-oriented, but the most upstream raw material base oil of the industry is controlled by PetroChina and Sinopec, and purchasing overseas may increase the cost by about 75%.Joining Shell can undoubtedly successfully break through the monopoly of the two domestic giants, and can avoid the risks brought about by fluctuations in raw material prices.

Niu Wenwen commented based on this: “Many people sell their companies because they have to do it as a last resort. In recent years, the business environment of domestic companies has undergone great changes, and the competitive strategy and viability based on the original relaxed environment have been fatally affected. Many enterprises can no longer survive the blow. Even if they persist, they can hardly see the light at the end of the tunnel. In this case, it is necessary to find a "real cash" to support the operation of the enterprise as soon as possible. "Big brother" has become the common choice of everyone. Then, why sell to multinational capital? Because, at this moment of regulation, who will be the buyer who can "really come up with a lot of cash"? The answer is self-evident: no Affected by the domestic financial environment (wealthy), under the general trend of RMB appreciation, multinational capital and multinational companies that want to enter China... Selling the company to a multinational company should be a rational choice for entrepreneurs in a specific environment .”

Just one month after Niu Wenwen made this comment, Gong Jialong, chairman of Tianfa Petroleum, the first to enter the oil industry known as the "No. Bill crime" involved in criminal turmoil.Gong Jialong was very active in the private heavy-duty campaign in 1. In June 2003, he initiated the establishment of China Great Wall United Petroleum Company with a registered capital of RMB 2005 million. Its business covers oil and gas exploration, exploitation, refining and sales.Gong Jialong proposed to build a "China's private oil carrier", which will become the "third pole" besides Sinopec and PetroChina, and stand with China Hi-Tech.

…Although Changlian Petroleum has obtained a business license, the four major permits for oil industry operations are the “four certificates” of refined oil wholesale license, refined oil retail license, refined oil import license, and domestic mineral exploration and development license. Neither can be obtained.Let alone them, even Huaxia Hi-Tech got incomplete certificates!Relying on the relationship with the above, Huaxia Hi-Tech has only obtained three licenses, namely the wholesale license of refined oil, the retail license of refined oil, and the import license of refined oil!In terms of domestic mineral exploration and development licenses, Huaxia Hi-Tech has every license.Fortunately, Huaxia Hi-Tech has at least overseas Angola where it can explore and develop oil, so generally speaking, it can be regarded as "curve to save the country".

In October, Gong Jialong was exposed to a financial scandal, allegedly using illegal means to extort 10 billion yuan in bank loans.After Gong Jialong was arrested by the police, the industry immediately reported that Sinopec was about to enter the "reorganization" of Tianfa Petroleum.The Petroleum Chamber of Commerce of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, which was on the verge of collapse, issued a weak statement saying, "We firmly oppose non-private monopoly oil companies taking this opportunity to get their hands on the assets of private oil companies, thereby affecting the reform efforts to build a harmonious development of China's oil market." Then Such a Petroleum Chamber of Commerce of the National Federation of Industry and Commerce found Huaxia Hi-Tech. Their meaning is very simple. Instead of letting a state-owned enterprise such as Sinopec take over and "reorganize" Tianfa Petroleum, it is better to let Huaxia Hi-Tech do it!Didn't Huaxia Hi-Tech reorganize Hunan Torch and frontier farming before?

For such a matter, Jia Gang advocated that it would be fine to buy Tianfa, and Jia Hongjian had nothing to do with it.So I discussed with Sinopec, and by virtue of being a shareholder of Sinopec, Sinopec also nodded.People even said that the intention of their reorganization is obvious, that is, they do not want other competitors to appear in the market.Huaxia Hi-Tech has already come in, and it is better to hand over such a Tianfa to Huaxia Hi-Tech than to others.That means that it is best to share the cake with a few of you, and the newcomers will go up to the table. If there is something wrong with them, don't blame Sinopec for picking on the faults and kicking the newcomers off the table!After all, no matter how big the cake is, no one wants more people to share it!

Although according to the rules negotiated when entering the WTO, at the end of 2006, China will open the wholesale operation rights of domestic crude oil and refined oil.However, according to the "Guidebook for Refined Oil Business Enterprises", if an enterprise wants to apply for the qualification of refined oil wholesale operation, the materials submitted by the applicant must include "wholly owned or more than 50 shares, holding a legal certificate of more than 1 cubic meters of refined oil depots document".This clause is great news for domestic monopoly giants and multinational oil groups, but it makes small and medium-sized private enterprises with little power complain endlessly. For Huaxia Hi-Tech, it is actually dispensable. Already got these two rights.And such a guidebook actually means that the day the ban is opened is the time when the weak are out.

By the way, Jia Hongjian studied the so-called private oil companies in China.I found out that after Huaxia Hi-Tech and several major giants rushed to acquire nearly 100 gas stations in the earliest days, there are still more than 500 private oil companies in the country. These are good opportunities for acquisitions!In the "capital feast" of major industry restructuring, the fate of private capital being completely marginalized is irreversible.In the "Top 98.36 Chinese Enterprises" list released this year, the total amount of state-owned capital accounted for an absolute 74% share, and the number of selected private companies was 500, whose combined assets were less than that of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. one tenth.If we compare China's top 500 companies with the "world's top [-] companies" selected by "Fortune" magazine, we can find that industries with high profitability worldwide are mainly concentrated in automobiles, food, electronic appliances, building materials, industrial and agricultural equipment, Competitive industries such as retail, trade, banking, insurance, and pharmaceuticals, while China is mainly concentrated in traditional monopoly industries such as telecommunications, steel, oil, natural gas extraction, petrochemicals, and electric power.The main reason for this situation is that these industries are still largely controlled by the government.

…A very obvious fact is that the growth of Chinese private companies has been under the overlook of a strong capital cluster.As a capital owner, on the one hand, the government controls policies and rules of the game, and on the other hand, it regards defending its own capital interests as the highest value orientation.According to the WTO's market opening schedule, my country's finance, insurance, communications, and even communication industries were opened sequentially. However, in the process of implementation, there was a phenomenon that the "external" opening was prioritized and the internal opening was lagging behind. Some large multinational companies obtained priority access.In the new round of great integration that will determine the future of China's industrial structure, private companies fall into a marginalized and even forgotten disadvantaged position.

A pessimistic mood has spread among private capital groups.Feng Lun, chairman of Vantone Group, one of the "Six Vantone Brothers" who panned for gold in the South China Sea, wrote an article entitled "Crossing the River of History" at the end of the year.This entrepreneur with a master's degree in law and who usually laughs and jokes likes to tell half-bad jokes showed surprising insight at this time. He wrote: "Private capital has always been a subsidiary or supplement to state-owned capital. Therefore, the best The way to protect yourself is to either stay away from the monopoly of state-owned capital and settle down in a corner, do small business, actively do good deeds, and build roads and bridges; While maintaining and increasing the value of state-owned capital, management enables private capital to be recognized by mainstream social values ​​and creates a relatively safe development environment. In the future, with the establishment and development of a harmonious society, private capital will be large in number, small in scale, and employable It is characterized by a large number of people, and its living space will be limited to areas that have no conflict with state-owned capital or that state-owned capital voluntarily surrenders. In the face of state-owned capital, private capital can only always insist on cooperation rather than competition, supplementation rather than substitution, and subsidiary Only with a position of not overstepping can we advance and retreat freely and continue to develop.” r1152