Journey 1995:Non-Stop

Chapter 295 Company Establishment
As for early stripping formwork and aluminum formwork, they were not popular at that time.

Compared to wood plywood, steel formwork is expensive and can be used multiple times. Most construction sites are unlikely to buy it and will choose to rent it instead.

The price of one ton of steel formwork is about 2000-3000 yuan. A construction site often needs hundreds of tons of steel formwork, so most construction sites choose to rent it on a monthly basis.

A simple calculation reveals that the return on this leasing business is quite good, but the entry cost is too high; you can't get involved without at least a million in capital. Besides, the industry is also very risky. Defaulting on construction site agreements is extremely troublesome, unlike operating a crane which requires permits.

Therefore, this industry requires not only strong suppliers but also strong users, making it difficult for ordinary people to enter the market.

In addition to specifying the rent, deposit, and lease term, the lease agreement between the two parties also stipulates the responsibilities for maintenance, loss, and intentional damage.

For Yan Hui, being the lessor isn't so simple either. He needs to provide technical guidance and conduct regular inspections, so he also needs to hire professionals.

As the products from the processing plant were sold, Yan Hui's funds gradually returned. By April, Yan Hui had more than 1.5 million yuan in cash. The company was also registered. The first batch of steel formwork, worth about 500,000 yuan, had just been moved to the company and was successfully leased out. The rental fee was calculated on a daily basis, and the daily rental fee for these 200 tons of goods was about 500 yuan.

These are the preliminary preparations. Yan Hui plans to gradually invest 200-500 million yuan into the company this year. Originally, he intended to find a joint venture partner, but since the customer base isn't saturated yet, he plans to operate independently. He will only consider seeking investment once all the steel formwork purchased with the funds has been leased out. At that time, many people will be eager to invest, including his brother-in-law, cousin, and other relatives.

In April, Yan Hui's parents took his grandmother by plane to Jinan. He didn't go back himself because he was afraid his parents and grandmother wouldn't know how to fly, so he sent a salesman back to help them.

Currently, Yan Hui's company has a total of 13 employees. Wang Yongjun, Zhou Ping, and others have transferred their employment relationships to the company and have begun to officially pay social security contributions according to the company's articles of association. In addition, the processing plant managed by Dai Zhongwei has about 15 workers.

In other words, Yan Hui now supports 30 people. The team is growing very fast, but he has found that it is not difficult to manage.

Zhou Ping needs no introduction; he's known Yan Hui the longest and is now practically the second-in-command at Yan Hui's leasing company. He knows everything about the day-to-day operations. The financial aspects of steel formwork leasing aren't difficult, but meticulous attention is required. It involves warehousing, transportation, and depreciation, all of which need to be calculated and accounted for accurately.

Wang Yongjun is now the head of Yan Hui's sales department. He has always been diligent and has cultivated several key personnel. Wang Wei, who was one of the earliest to follow Yan Hui, has also grown up and is now more reliable in his speech and actions. This is all thanks to Wang Yongjun.

Dai Zhongwei was equally trouble-free. Yan Hui didn't make much money from the processing plant, but because of Dai Zhongwei's special status, he held a stake in the plant and was entitled to a share of the profits. In absolute terms, Dai Zhongwei received far more money than Wang Yongjun, but he didn't keep it all for himself; both Yan Hui and Dai Zhongwei were well aware of this.

With this processing plant, the issue of profit sharing between Yan Hui and General Manager Han became simple: it could be divided according to shareholding. As the major shareholder, Dai Zhongwei naturally did his best, fearing that any machine might malfunction.

This business system was fully established in just a few months. Yan Hui searched everywhere for suitable steel formwork fasteners every day. His steel formwork itself was basically customized directly from steel mills in Tangshan through Wang Zongbo's channels. The price of transporting it here was relatively cheap, and it could be transported by rail. As for the fasteners, Yan Hui personally took care of it and bought second-hand goods from all over the place.

Many people don't know that, due to the difference in tin content, many older steel formwork fasteners are actually of better quality than newer ones. So Yan Hui had to search everywhere and buy whatever he found that was suitable.

Yan Hui was extremely busy. Upon hearing that his parents and grandmother had arrived at the airport, he immediately arranged for someone to pick them up and booked a nice room at a nearby hotel. His parents had brought a lot of luggage, and the salesperson who accompanied them became their manual laborer, carrying an unknown amount of things. The salesperson told Yan Hui that the luggage was overweight and they had to pay extra for it. Yan Hui said he understood and asked him not to tell his family.

No matter what, Yan Hui felt a deep sense of accomplishment after finally bringing his family to Jinan.

However, to Yan Hui's surprise, his family was not in a hurry to eat, nor did they want to see the new house. Instead, they wanted to see Yan Hui's properties.

"Huh? Let's eat first, what's the rush?" Yan Hui found it amusing, but still took the group to a restaurant and prepared a large table of exquisite vegetarian dishes to entertain Grandma, who was overjoyed.

After dinner, Yan Hui took his family to the timber processing plant.

"It's so big! This factory is yours too?" The father followed behind, looking on in disbelief.

"Well, this factory is very simple, just a steel structure, and it's quite old, but it's enough for wood processing." As Yan Hui spoke, he saw Dai Zhongwei inspecting the machines, so he called Dai Zhongwei over and introduced the processing plant to his family.

Yan Hui was a worldly man; he didn't think this processing plant was any big business. In fact, the plant still had 50 yuan in loans to repay. He had seen many large-scale equipment and large enterprises, some with annual output values ​​of billions; his was nothing compared to that.

"This is fully automatic!" The father was curious about the band saw machine. He looked at his wife and said, "It's a bit noisy in here. You two go out first. Xiaohui and I will take a look."

The processing plant only had a dozen or so machines of various sizes, but Yan Hui's father spent almost an hour looking at them before finally pulling Yan Hui aside and asking, "Are all of these really ours?"

“Strictly speaking, no. Director Dai is backed by General Manager Han, whom I’ve mentioned to you before. He’s my benefactor, and he also holds a stake in the business. But in reality, you can think of it as one of our family’s businesses.” Yan Hui felt that this explanation was acceptable.

"Now that you say that, I feel a bit more at ease. But what did you mean by 'one of' just now?"

“I also set up a company that rents out steel formwork. There are more than a dozen people there, but there’s nothing to see there,” Yan Hui explained.

The company really has nothing. The sales staff are away for long periods of time, the steel formwork has been rented out, and there are fewer than three people in the company on a regular basis.

"Quickly, take us to see it." The father found everything novel and fascinating.

(I'm collecting names of the companies mentioned in the book. Please leave a comment, and I'll use the one with the most likes, as long as it's not too outrageous.)
(End of this chapter)