In many people's eyes, Shi Yuzhu's image did not change until around 2004. Before that, he had been a guy who sold health products by advertising. It was not until he sold melatonin and his gold partner to stone that more and more investment projects were known to the outside world that people exclaimed: Shi Yuzhu became an investor.
In fact, from the day when Shi Yuzhu made up his mind to appear in public, he always played two roles: entrepreneur and investor, but in the following years, his investor color became more and more intense.
During the preparation of Giant Investment Co., Ltd., Shi Yuzhu said in an interview with the media that the new giant company "will be an investment holding company, and I will be the legal representative, mainly engaged in biopharmaceuticals and health products, or a private enterprise." The giant brand still needs to be used, although there are many stains. My main business must be only one, and I will be limited to other industries in the form of equity participation under the premise of no risk. "
This is also the case. Companies at the top of the pyramid in Shi Yuzhu Department, whether Giant Investment Co., Ltd., Shanghai Huaxin Investment Co., Ltd. or Alashan Zuoqi Juxin Co., Ltd. in Inner Mongolia, are purely investment companies, and industrial investment ranks first in the business scope of Giant Investment and Shanghai Huaxin. Shi Yuzhu used these companies to build his enterprise kingdom.
Shi Yuzhu once said: "Investors need to keep a low profile and do not need any publicity. They will be more silent." Therefore, Shi Yuzhu, who is best at marketing, keeps the advertisements of melatonin and gold partner flashing on TV, but his capital operation and project investment are very low-key, and it is often after the project matures that the outside world knows the news.
For Shi Yuzhu, although melatonin and gold partner were sold to stone, health care products are still the foundation of Shi Yuzhu.
In April and May, 2004, a health care product named "Jinxuekang" began to appear in Jilin and Wuxi. This is a product aimed at hyperlipidemia, and some familiar places can be seen in the promotion of this product.
What makes people feel deja vu is Jin's soft propaganda. These are quite popular and colloquial. For example, an article entitled "Blood lipids began to decline in three days" said:
Hyperlipidemia directly leads to coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction, cerebral hemorrhage and stroke, and the consequences are paralysis and death! Every day of high blood lipid, life expectancy is reduced by 7 days.
There are many hypolipidemic products, but few of them are effective. It is not effective and has no toxic side effects. In order to overcome the world problem of reducing blood fat with special effects and no toxic and side effects, the expert group of Chinese Pharmacology Society has worked hard for more than ten years.
At the beginning of 2004, the Chinese Pharmacology Society solemnly announced to the world: "We finally took off the jewel in the crown!" The formula of Huangjinxuekang, which is composed of pure natural statins, Ginkgo biloba leaves and Salvia miltiorrhiza, has successfully realized' natural blood washing in the body', with rapid blood lipid reduction and no toxic and side effects. A large number of human experiments have proved that after taking Huangjinxuekang, blood lipids began to decline three days later, and most of them reached or approached the normal level one month later.
The appeal of this soft article is exactly the same as that of the golden partner of that year: emphasizing the authority of the product (developed by the Chinese Pharmacological Society) and the uniqueness of the product (fast blood lipid reduction, no toxic side effects). In fact, this is really a new product of Shi Yuzhu. Just like melatonin and gold partner, they both tried to sell gold and Kang Xue in Jilin and Wuxi, and Shi Yuzhu tried to test the market reaction of the products with small market trials.
In addition to these familiar operation methods, the biggest difference between Golden Blood Health and all previous health care products in Shi Yuzhu is that its marketing method no longer adopts the old routine of "advertising bombing", but adopts the new trick of "soft writing+conference marketing".
The so-called conference marketing refers to the sales method of selling products through family service and product description by looking for specific customers. The essence of conference marketing is to lock in and develop target customers, export corporate image and product knowledge to customers in an all-round way, and care and hide sales to intended customers as expert consultants. Specifically, conference marketing is divided into popular science marketing, tourism marketing, fraternity marketing, catering marketing, love marketing, customer appreciation meeting, database marketing and so on.
To put it simply, conference marketing means that manufacturers invite consumers to attend meetings to explain their products and related health knowledge, thus influencing consumers' choices and achieving the purpose of selling products to consumers.
The emergence of conference marketing has its roots.
The first is that consumers are becoming more and more rational. After years of "advertising bombing" and "soft text siege", consumers have become immune to advertising and soft text, and these usual marketing methods have also lost their lethality.
Secondly, the cost of media advertising is getting higher and higher, but the advertising effect is getting worse and worse. With the trend of media segmentation becoming more and more obvious and the government's supervision of advertising becoming more and more strict, investing heavily in health care products advertising may not necessarily produce corresponding results, but it is easy to arouse public resentment and media doubts.
However, conference marketing has many advantages. Some people have summarized ten advantages of conference marketing compared with traditional marketing, including "developing potential customers more effectively", "meeting individual needs of consumers", "avoiding media waste, rationally using limited funds", "simple operation, easy replication", "quick feedback of market information", "strong sales atmosphere", "easy control of marketing expenses" and "quick turnover of funds".
In 2004, there have been quite a few successful precedents in conference marketing, such as Zhongmai, which achieved sales from several million to1800 million in three years through conference marketing; Green Valley Group increased from about 1 billion yuan in 2000 to nearly 1 billion yuan. In fact, in 2003, the income from selling products in conference marketing mode has exceeded that in traditional mode.
Shi Yuzhu adopted conference marketing in Golden Blood Health, which was influenced by Green Valley Group. Lv Songtao, chairman of Green Valley Group, is an Anhui native of Shi Yuzhu, and they have known each other for a long time. Song Jun, who used to be the planning minister of Giant Group, came out of the furnace, and "Lingzhibao in China" was the product of Lv Songtao. After Shi Yuzhu's comeback, at 1999, he also borrowed 4 million yuan from Green Valley Group to repay the debt of the completed building of Giant Building. Green Valley's achievements in conference marketing will certainly make Shi Yuzhu sit up and take notice.
However, conference marketing did not make Kim successful. A year later, Kim's conference marketing ended in failure. This product was put on the market for trial sale in April 2004. It was not until February 2006 that Duan Yongji, the chairman of Stone Holdings, announced that the company was going to launch the third health product-Golden Blood Health after melatonin and gold partner. However, it is hard to say whether it can be launched in 2006. Huangjinxuekang has become the longest-running health care product in Shi Yuzhu. Investor Shi Yuzhu (2)
However, Golden Blood Health is not the only new product developed by Shi Yuzhu. On the list of new products in Shi Yuzhu, there are "Golden Slimming", "Tangbikang" and "Hugan Tablet". In addition, he will invest 465,438+billion yuan to build a giant group headquarters covering an area of 205 mu in Songjiang, Shanghai, and move the R&D center, marketing headquarters, settlement center, logistics center, training center and new product production workshop together.
Because of Shi Yuzhu's strength in the health care industry, it has become the industry leader in Shanghai. He not only bought Shanghai Hengshoutang Pharmaceutical, but also took the initiative to find Shi Yuzhu in mid-2004, hoping to be acquired.
For the foundation of health care products, Shi Yuzhu has never relaxed for a moment. In addition to health products, Shi Yuzhu has a lot of investment.
In the era of the giant group, Shi Yuzhu was a man who never borrowed money from the bank. He is more at ease with his money. When the giant group had problems and needed funds, he found it difficult for private enterprises to borrow money from banks. The failure of the Giant Group made Shi Yuzhu change his mind. He not only borrowed money from the bank, but also became a shareholder of the bank.
200 1 1 Among the issuer's shares held by Beijing Huazi Syndicate Company, one of the promoters of Huaxia Bank, 2 million shares were frozen by the Yuzhong District People's Court of Chongqing. On June 365438+1October 3 1 day, 2002, the Yuzhong District People's Court of Chongqing auctioned these 2 million shares, and Shanghai Jiante won the bid. Prior to this, on April 22 and July 30, 2002, 365,438+0, Shanghai Jiante received 58 million shares of Huaxia Bank issuer held by Beijing Huazi Syndicate twice; On September 4th, Shanghai Jiante accepted 80 million shares of Huaxia Bank held by Shougang Corporation, the founder of Huaxia Bank. In this way, Shanghai Jiante holds10.40 billion shares of Huaxia Bank, ranking the sixth largest shareholder of Huaxia Bank with 56% shares.
Huaxia Bank is not the only bank invested by Shi Yuzhu. On September 9 and October 3, 2003, 165438+65438, Beijing Wantong Industrial Co., Ltd., the ninth largest shareholder of Minsheng Bank, transferred its14393560,000 shares to Shanghai Jiante twice. As the former eighth largest shareholder also transferred part of its shares to another company, Shanghai Jiante became the largest shareholder.
As for investment banks, the media speculated that Shi Yuzhu intended to get his hands on the financial industry, but Shi Yuzhu himself said that investment banks are purely financial. "Li Ka-shing once said that investment depends first on whether the exit mechanism is smooth, and then on whether the return is high-I think that's quite right, so I want to look for industries with low risk and strong liquidity. Based on this understanding, I invested in banks. "
According to Shi Yuzhu's interview with the media in 2005, his investment income in the bank is quite good. "My investment in banking has doubled in three years. If there is an opportunity, I will definitely increase my shareholding in Huaxia Bank and China Minsheng Bank. "
Doubling in three years means that the three-year return rate of Shi Yuzhu's investment in these two banks has reached 100%, which is exactly the same as the return rate of Giant Building promised by Shi Yuzhu in that year. Do Huaxia Bank and Minsheng Bank really have such strong profitability?
If we look at the annual reports of these two banks in recent three years, we will find that the return on equity of these two banks is not a figure beyond people's imagination. The yield of Minsheng Bank is around 15%, and Huaxia Bank is even lower, around 10%. If you only pay dividends, you can't get 100% in three years. If Shi Yuzhu's figure of "doubling in three years" is true, then a considerable part of its income must come from other channels.
This channel may be to resell the shares held by Shanghai Jiante to listed companies.
On April 16, 2005, Qingdao Jiante Bio announced that Wuxi Jiante, which is controlled by Qingdao Jiante Bio, signed a share transfer agreement with Shanghai Jiante to acquire 45 million shares of Huaxia Bank Co., Ltd. held by Shanghai Jiante. Based on the net assets per share of Huaxia Bank in 2004, Qingdao Jiante Bio bought these shares at a premium of 1.66%, and spent165.438+0.7 billion yuan.
Shi Yuzhu's enterprise system played a great role in this transaction. As Wuxi Jiante and Shanghai Jiante have no related relationship in equity, this transaction is not a related party transaction. The announcement said: "This equity transfer is conducive to the company's stable return on investment and the interests of the company and the majority of shareholders." This is a seemingly sound reason. As we all know, the income of banks is much more stable than the vagaries of the health care products market. However, it is worth noting that since 2003, the return on equity of Huaxia Bank has dropped significantly. After 2003, although the yield increased slightly, it was still about 4 percentage points lower than that of Minsheng Bank.
Investment in banks is basically an enjoyable project-although it also requires clever arrangements to obtain higher returns. In 2004, the market seems to be full of opportunities, one of which is the investment boom brought about by the rising domestic energy and raw material prices. Shi Yuzhu has never let go of this hot spot.
On June 23rd, 2004,165438+1October 23rd, Qingdao Jiante Bio signed the Equity Transfer Agreement with Tangshan Lu Gang Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., intending to acquire 75% equity of Tangshan Lu Gang Coking Co., Ltd. at a purchase price of 229.9 billion yuan. The announcement said: "The purpose of the company's acquisition of assets this time is to enter the coal and coke integration industry and cultivate new growth points for the company's future profit growth, with a view to sharing the profits brought by the industry growth through industrial restructuring, continuously improving profitability and returning to the company's shareholders."
According to the memorandum of cooperation on asset transfer signed by Qingdao Jiante Bio and Lu Gang Iron and Steel Company of Tangshan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., the maximum profit will be 200 million yuan per year. Because Tangshan Lu Gang Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. has made a guarantee: the net profit of Lu Gang Coking Company in each fiscal year from 2005 to 2007 is not less than 200 million yuan. If the profit can't reach the guaranteed target, Lu Gang Iron and Steel must compensate for the insufficient profit.
As the acquisition subject Qingdao Jiante Bio is a listed company, this generous commitment has aroused the suspicion of the securities industry. Some analysts pointed out that as a normal equity acquisition, it will involve the guarantee of accounts receivable, but it is unreasonable to ask the seller to guarantee future profits; Secondly, Qingdao Jiante Bio-acquisition needs to pay more than 200 million yuan, but at that time there was only 97 million yuan in monetary funds. Even if the short-term investment is 80 million yuan, the funding gap will still reach 58 million yuan. If we rely on bank loans, it will be a challenge for Qingdao Jiante Bio, which is engaged in the production and circulation of health products. Moreover, PSA is mainly engaged in the production and management of coke. Under the influence of international coke price drop and macro-control, coke is far from the scenery in early 2004. Established in July, 2003, dry port coking has caught up with the last bus of the industry boom, and its prospect is not optimistic.
In September 2005, this seemingly beautiful transaction was finally cancelled. Qingdao Jiante Bio cancelled the equity transfer transaction completed in April of that year on the grounds that the national macro-control had a great impact on the steel and coke industries, the product prices fluctuated violently, and the expected matters in the original agreement signed by the two parties could not be completed as scheduled. Qingdao Jiante Bio returned the original price of the equity to Lu Gang Iron and Steel.
While Qingdao Jiante Bio, a listed company, was busy buying coking in Hong Kong and the mainland, Shi Yuzhu Giant Investment was already operating another investment project. This is an unexpected and reasonable project: online games. Investor Shi Yuzhu (3)
Although Shi Yuzhu started to set foot in the health care products business from the launch of Brain Gold, she has been obsessed with the IT industry from scratch. Most of the companies established after Shi Yuzhu's comeback include computers. Shanghai Jiante is a computer software and hardware development and technical consultation; Huaiyuan Hong Qiang is a computer electronic product; Huangshan Kangqi is a computer consulting service; Giants invest in computer network development; Shanghai Huaxin is a computer. All these show that Shi Yuzhu is obsessed with his old job. As long as the time is ripe, he still wants to enter the IT industry. Shi Yuzhu later admitted that he had an IT complex when interviewed by the media. "In fact, we started out as a giant Hanka, and most of the cadres were software engineers. Sooner or later, we will return to this industry. " Not only Shi Yuzhu himself, but also Shi Yuzhu's followers still remember the glory of lottery direct election. They think that the giant is the pioneer of China's software industry, and the technology is even too advanced to be a "martyr". So investing in online games can be regarded as regaining our profession.
From the external environment, in May 2004, Shanda Network displayed the game "Money Way" on Nasdaq, which made countless people in the industry and those who wanted to enter the industry drool. At the same time, the social criticism of teenagers' addiction to online games has intensified. At this time, Shanghai has put forward the concepts of "national brand" and "green game" of online games, emphasizing independent research and development and the educational nature of games; The Xuhui District Government, where Shanghai Jiante is registered, also plans to form a digital entertainment industry belt between the south of Xujiahui and Shanghai South Railway Station. Developing online games can not only realize Shi Yuzhu's long-cherished wish of "returning to IT", but also meet the needs of the government.
After Shi Yuzhu registered Shanghai Jiante in Xuhui District, Shanghai, the relationship with Xuhui District Government has been very harmonious. Shanghai Jiante's annual tax revenue exceeds 100 million yuan, which makes the district government attach great importance to the company. Later, the Gold Partner Company was registered in Pudong, and Xuhui District tried to persuade Shi Yuzhu to change to Xuhui. Naturally, Shi Yuzhu also consciously combines the needs of the government with the strategies of its own enterprises. In fact, the reason why Xuhui District attaches great importance to Shanghai Jiante is not only because it is a big taxpayer, but more importantly, bioengineering is one of the key industrial directions in Xuhui District. Although Shi Yuzhu's Shanghai Jiante is a health care product, the company name and publicity emphasize "biotechnology", which is very consistent with the industrial orientation of Xuhui District. This online game, Shi Yuzhu also played a card that meets the needs of the Shanghai Municipal Government and the Xuhui District Government-independently developing educational puzzle games.
Such a positioning will certainly be supported by the government. As a result, a person in charge of Xuhui Software Base, where Jiante was registered, introduced Shi Yuzhu's online game company to Xuhui Puyuan Software Park.
The online game project has been in operation since mid-2004. The specific trader is Fei Yongjun, deputy general manager of Gold Partner Company. Fei Yongjun, with a bachelor's degree, was originally an ordinary employee of Giant Group Tianjin Company. He followed Shi Yuzhu for many years and was called one of Shi Yuzhu's "Four Musketeers" by the media. Fei Yongjun was defeated by Shi Yuzhu. A widely circulated story says that when Shi Yuzhu climbed Mount Everest, he got lost and was trapped. When the situation was critical, Shi Yuzhu said, "Never mind, Laofei will come to save us." Visible Fei Yongjun's weight in Shi Yuzhu's heart, Fei Yongjun is in charge of this new online game project, and it can also be seen that Shi Yuzhu attaches importance to this project.
However, Fei Yongjun is only responsible for the preparation of the online game company and does not participate in the specific operation of the company. His task is to set up a company. After the online game company was established, he quit. This enterprise was formally registered in June 2004 with a registered capital of 20 million yuan, and it was named "Shanghai Zhengtu Network Technology Co., Ltd.". The promoters appearing in the industrial and commercial registration materials are Lv Zhang, Gu Sulian and Xu Jun, and Chen Cheng and Chen Kai of Shanghai Jiante are directors of the company.
In the nearly one year after the establishment of the online game company in mid-2004, Journey Network has been secretly preparing, establishing, developing and testing. Few people outside know the existence of this company, and almost no one knows that Shi Yuzhu has invested in an online game project. Until April, 2005, a Shanghai financial media reported that Shi Yuzhu invested in an online game company called Journey.
This news has aroused the interest of many media, but no media can dig out the detailed situation, because at this time Shi Yuzhu and Journey. Keep silent. As time went on, people gradually forgot about it.
In September 2005, Shi Yuzhu's online game Journey was developed and entered the testing stage. However, what appears in front of the players is not the originally planned puzzle game, but a 2D role-playing game.
The main story of Journey is about the chaos of the world and the rise of heroes. The design of the country is added to the game, and you can choose when building characters. These countries are Qi, Yan, Song and Wei. In order to strengthen the "stickiness" of the game, the journey has added many elements to the interaction between people, and there are also friendly settings between players. But overall, this game is still a typical role-playing game, which is no different from the game legend of Shanda Network.
With the test of the game, Shi Yuzhu also made a high-profile appearance, explaining why he chose online games as a new investment project in an interview with Southern Metropolis Daily.
According to Shi Yuzhu, because of his habit, he fell asleep early in the morning and then began to work in the afternoon. "After melatonin is on the right track, I can't ask all cadres to have the same schedule as me, so from 12 to dawn, I basically have nothing to do, that is, I started playing online games from this time."
At the beginning, Shi Yuzhu only had more than 30 grades. In order to upgrade quickly, he looked at who had the highest level in this respect and found that it was a player with more than 70 levels, the owner of Wenzhou Internet Cafe. The Wenzhou boss asked three people to practice his account for 24 hours on the condition of playing in the Internet cafe for free, and Shi Yuzhu spent 3,000 yuan to buy this account. Later, in order to improve his level, Shi Yuzhu spent money on other players' equipment several times. Investor Shi Yuzhu (4)
Shi Yuzhu thus came into contact with the online game training and equipment trading market. He believes that online games are not the best way to charge by time, which is a grand initiative, because no matter whether players have money or not, their consumption in the game is the same. According to Shi Yuzhu's analysis, online game players in China are divided into two categories, one is game lovers who have time to cultivate, and the other is people who have no time but have spending power, such as white-collar workers who like games. What he has to do is to find business opportunities in these two complementary needs.
Based on the above judgment, Shi Yuzhu thinks that the cake with the largest market share of online games is not in the game operation. The annual income of game development and operation companies is only over 3 billion yuan, while the income from selling plug-ins and training agents is 5 billion to 6 billion yuan, and the equipment trading market is 9 billion to 654.38+0 billion yuan. He hopes to find gold in the latter two markets.
In order to avoid the social criticism that teenagers are addicted to online games, Shi Yuzhu also ingeniously linked the employment of migrant workers with his online game model. "After our research, we found that the pyramid of online game users in China is actually bigger, with 70% of the players in small cities and rural areas. I once went directly to Internet cafes to chat with players, one of whom was a farmer in Li Xing County, Anhui Province. He told me that it is common for dozens of farmers to play games in Internet cafes in their spare time. According to survey data, farmers in some provinces are unemployed for 60% of the year. Now there are internet cafes in ordinary towns and villages. For these players who have a lot of time,' substitute training' can even be a good income for them. "
Shi Yuzhu claimed that he had prepared $200 million for Journey Network, and the goal of Journey was to list on NASDAQ.
Blueprint belongs to blueprint, and the reality of online game market has both bad news and good news for Shi Yuzhu.
The online game market in 2005 is no longer the time for Shanda to conquer the world with a legend. In 2005, the game with the biggest response was World of Warcraft, which was the product of Blizzard, a famous American game developer represented by Ninetowns. In the domestic game market, foreign games still occupy the largest share, and domestic games only account for 27%. The top three domestic games are Fantasy Westward Journey, mir Legend and Love between Swordsmen, with market share of 9.23%, 8.03% and 8.02% respectively. These data are enough to show that Shi Yuzhu's journey needs to face, which is definitely a long journey.
In 2005, the competition in the domestic online game market became more and more fierce. According to the survey of iResearch Market Consulting Company, the average attachment time of online game players to a certain game is 8 months, those who have been attached for more than 2 years are 0, and those who have only been attached for less than 1 month account for 28% of17. This means that in general, players will change a game after 8 months. In the case that the relevant state departments require online games to join the anti-addiction system, game operators have to sacrifice the banner of "free" in order to let players stick to a game for a long time. June 5438+February 2005, Shanda announced that the legendary game was free forever. It is quite inappropriate for Journey to launch a test at this time.
According to the survey of iResearch Market Consulting Company, 20.7% of online game players in China have no income, and students are in school. Among those who have income, the average income is 2 1.44 yuan, and only 7.69% of them earn more than 5,000 yuan. If the main income source of the journey depends on the high-income people who only account for 7.69%, the risk is too great. In Shi Yuzhu's plan, the sales network of health products will serve as the promotion network of online games. As we all know, Shi Yuzhu's health products are mainly aimed at middle-aged and elderly people. More than 50% of online game players are 19 ~ 25 years old, with an average age of only 24 years old. Whether Shi Yuzhu's sales network can be "suitable for all ages" remains to be tested by time.
Of course, the market also has good news.
For example, in 2005, 44.05% of players played online games at home, while only 29.54% played online games in Internet cafes. This means that Shanda's model of selling cards through Internet cafes has gradually lost its foundation, and established game operators need to readjust their sales models, while Zhengtu.com does not have this burden; Shi Yuzhu's journey attaches great importance to the communication between players. According to the survey, what online game players like most in the game is to make new friends. The favorite game type of online game players is still martial arts, accounting for 35.42%, which is exactly the type chosen for the journey.
Most importantly, 48.33% of online game players can accept substitute training, an increase of 1358% over the previous year. Players who have made cash transactions in the game account for 58.99%. For Shi Yuzhu's favorite agent training and equipment trading, this means realistic market space.
However, overall, the popularity of the online game industry is far less than that of the grand listing. Softbank, a famous investment institution that once invested in Shanda, has made it clear that it will no longer invest in online games. Whether the game that Shi Yuzhu is going to spend 200 million dollars to build will eventually become a new kingdom like melatonin is still unknown.
Judging from the projects invested by Shi Yuzhu, the fields involved include health care products, finance, raw materials, IT and so on. These industries lack relevance and complementarity, and investment in raw materials and online games projects is obviously hot. But the hotter the project, the greater the risk.
The office rented by Zhengtu Network in Puyuan Science Park, Xuhui District, Shanghai originally belonged to a guarantee company. Due to the influence of macro-control, the company closed down before it started to operate. Due to the cancellation of macro-control, Tangshan Port land coking project cannot reach the expected rate of return of Qingdao Jiante Bio. Online games may encounter more risks than coking projects in Hong Kong and land.
In this false atmosphere, Shi Yuzhu Giant Group is becoming more and more famous. Shi Yuzhu and the Giant Group, which are well-known, inevitably overestimate their abilities. With the passage of time, this wrong overestimation is increasingly out of touch with the actual ability of the giants.