From stopping wages to being “bankrupt”, the former richest man in China is about to kill Gome

Every generation has impressive business leaders. Some people grew up watching Ma Huateng’s birthday gift of yellow diamonds circulated in QQ groups; some were inspired by Ma Yun’s success from English teacher to e-commerce entrepreneur;

Among these influential figures in different periods, Huang Guangyu is still a very special one. He is a self-made entrepreneur, a businessman who has been in prison, and a brand leader whose stock price can rise in public after he is released from prison.

He is the founder of Gome who was recently exposed or was liquidated.

In 2004, 2005, and 2008, Huang Guangyu was the richest man in mainland China on the Hurun Report three times.

In 2006, Forbes China Rich List also ranked first.

Gome was filed for bankruptcy liquidation?

Many post-95s and post-00s do not know Huang Guangyu, but there is a high probability that they still know Gome.

Most people's memories related to it are going to Gome to buy electrical appliances. In 2007, Gome was the brand with the largest number of stores among Chinese home appliance chain companies. So even if you don't go to every store to buy, the big Gome sign on the street is also reminding you of the existence of this behemoth.

Gome in 2022 is the "villain" who lives in the hearts of most people. Arrears of wages to employees, requiring employees to write commitment letters, breaking up with home appliance brands, and suppliers came to collect debts, so it was finally exposed in December, and Gome was filed for bankruptcy liquidation.

According to @中城院重量中心, Gome Electric Co., Ltd. was filed with the Bankruptcy Court of the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court for bankruptcy liquidation because it owed millions of dollars to its suppliers and was unable to repay after being urged. The court has started a review.

That night, Gome responded: “As of now, Gome Electric Co., Ltd. and other subsidiaries of Gome Holding Group have not received any legal documents or inquiries from judicial authorities regarding our company’s bankruptcy application.”

And @中城院重量中心 further responded that the court has received a full set of materials to apply for Gome's bankruptcy liquidation, but the judge also said that due to the impact of the epidemic, the review speed will be slower. The lawyer entrusted by the supplier who previously applied for bankruptcy liquidation has sent a lawyer's letter to Gome Electric. The lawyer's letter clearly stated that if the repayment is not arranged as soon as possible, it will apply for bankruptcy liquidation according to law.

But this matter itself is not as terrible as the word bankruptcy and liquidation sounds.

Because as long as the creditor's debts cannot be paid off, he can file a bankruptcy application against the debtor to the court of the debtor's domicile. In this case, in fact, the four suppliers applied to the court for compulsory enforcement because they could not get the repayment from Gome for a long time. If the compulsory enforcement still failed to pay off the debt, they finally went to the stage of bankruptcy liquidation.

Moreover, although the name of the Center for Important Cases of the Zhongcheng Court sounds like a government agency, it is actually a commercial company that provides consulting services, and what it says is not official. Secondly, according to an insider close to Gome, Gome currently owes more than 4 million yuan in arrears to these four suppliers. Even if the business is not going well, it is a little underestimated to underestimate this offline giant if it is only more than 4 million in arrears and it will go bankrupt.

Although this is news that makes it impossible to predict the direction of the plot, more people have noticed Gome's poor management in recent years.

The most important reason is that the founders also have no confidence in the future of Gome, which can be seen from the fact that Huang Guangyu has cashed out Gome stocks many times this year. According to statistics, Huang Guangyu recorded a total of 15 shareholding reductions this year, and his shareholding ratio dropped from 59.94% at the beginning of the year to 39.19%, a drop of 20.75%, and more than 1 billion in cash.

Another point is that Gome's news in recent years has been difficult to reassure. Layoffs, wage arrears, losses, overdue debts and other news are also manifestations of Gome's poor management. Gome employees ridiculed that they received "blind box salary" this year. They never know how much salary will be paid this month. The company does not do anything about salary payment. Without specific explanations, employees can only feel a chill from the instability.

Finally, Gome's poor operating conditions. In the semi-annual report disclosed in September, the company's revenue during the reporting period was 12.109 billion yuan, net profit was -2.966 billion yuan, and it lost 3 billion yuan in half a year. The new business is not progressing well. The last time Gome’s stock price soared was because of live broadcasting. However, in its social shopping live broadcasting platform Zhenhappy, Gome’s live broadcast itself has many problems. It is not attractive to consumers, and it is difficult to become the next New Oriental. .

Under such circumstances, when people hear the news of #GOME电办已经改略约约消息liquidation#, they will only think that the boots have finally fallen, but there is still some time before the boots fall.

Is this another "Nokia"?

From nearly 4,000 offline stores to debt collection by suppliers, Gome's plight is easy to think of former giants, such as Nokia. "We didn't do anything wrong, but for some reason, we lost." This sentence is said to be said by Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila. It is actually a fabricated rumor . The source cannot be tested, but people are willing to believe it That's all.

After all, the story of old giants being defeated by new things has not only happened once in these years, even Tencent, which was once a representative of new things, has a sense of crisis. Ma Huateng once said that in the fiercely competitive Internet, Tencent has been walking on eggshells every day for 12 years, and has never been at ease.

I am most worried about not understanding the usage habits of mainstream Internet users in the future, including QQ and WeChat. No one guarantees that something will never change, because human nature is to update, even if you have nothing wrong, just It's your fault that you're too old.

The story of Gome and Suning also seems to be a "too old" story.

That's right, there is also Suning. This time, the Weibo account @中城院重量中心 that attracted everyone’s attention to Gome not only applied for the bankruptcy liquidation of Gome, but also applied for the bankruptcy liquidation of Suning.com. Under the giants, the life of the two brands is actually not easy.

Looking back at the development history of these two brands, the electrical appliance mall, which used to rely on "service + low price" to develop rapidly and one-stop shopping for home appliances, did have a lot of innovations fifteen years ago. At that time, Suning provided one-stop purchase, installation, and after-sales services, so it became the purchase choice of many users. Gome's standardized and reproducible home appliance chain operation model also provides more competitive prices.

It's just that under the impact of the Internet, the original competitiveness will soon cease to exist.

Cheapness is only a basic operation in a world where the price of the Internet is involuntary, not to mention the installation of after-sales services that have been standardized today. Even because the Internet platform has a strong binding force on many merchants, users have begun to get used to this new e-commerce platform that is not limited to home appliances.

When Huang Guangyu went to prison, it was also the time when the two offline giants were at their peak. At that time, JD.com almost went bankrupt, Taobao had just started, Pinduoduo founder Huang Zheng had just returned to China to start a business, and even the national software WeChat had to wait 3 years before it could be launched. It's just that e-commerce has seen a lot of wind since then, and the rapid development of online platforms has gradually affected offline.

In 2014, e-commerce websites began to overtake these offline giants. Suning’s annual turnover in that year was 108.9 billion yuan, Taobao’s total turnover of 51.4 billion yuan on Double Eleven this year was half of it, and JD.com’s turnover this year was 260.2 billion yuan. After the Internet trading model has entered thousands of households, the scale effect of the Internet has made these platforms bigger and bigger, and their services are getting better and better.

Of course, the aging offline giants will not admit defeat and watch themselves miss this Internet trend in vain. They have also launched their own online apps, but the apps made by companies that are not from the Internet industry can hardly beat Taobao and JD.com, which have been exploring online e-commerce for many years.

Suning’s app at the beginning even only displayed product information sold offline. Gome’s true happiness today is the shadow of mainstream applications such as WeChat, Douyin, and Taobao. Everyone has learned it, but no one has learned it very successfully. .

Leaders who lead enterprises to pioneer may not be suitable for the new Internet competition. This can be seen from Huang Guangyu's series of actions after he was released from prison.

China Entrepreneur Magazine once reported that the scene of Huang Guangyu playing games while watching stocks during meetings after he was released from prison made many employees feel disillusioned; many employees called the meetings Huang Guangyu attended in daily life as "story meetings". After reporting to Huang Guangyu, the 10 billion GMV may become 500 billion like the "Great Leap Forward"; when encountering problems, the wages of the bottom employees will be postponed first, and the levels are clearly defined in daily work. He once said to an executive who wanted to leave : "If you dare to leave, I will kill you."

This kind of "bandit spirit" in the founder may have been an advantage of daring to fight and win over people 30 years ago. But today, everything about Huang Guangyu will be complained by employees as too "daddy" and not flat enough.

Whether it’s the company’s slowly updating business model or its founders, everything about Gome is a bit “too old” for today.

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