With a bang, the door above the head closed and the huge suction from the clouds disappeared. People suspended in mid-air used to fly upward by suction, but now they only fall.
This scene once appeared in the mind of a teaching and training tycoon. After the double reduction, he described to me that all he saw was depression.
He hangs in the air by himself. In the past few years, capital has been increasing online education, and the whole teaching and training industry has stood on the cusp. The market value of head enterprises is tens of billions of dollars. Players at the forefront believe that as long as they ride the wind and waves, they can cross the door of fate and reach the land of milk and honey.
However, the "Double Burden Reduction Document" ("Opinions on Further Reducing Students' Homework Burden and Off-campus Training Burden") officially released on July 24th closed the door of fate. The document strictly restricts the enterprises that carry out compulsory education and training business from three aspects: training time, institutional nature and financing listing, and some aspects are even stuck. In the past twenty or thirty years, primary and secondary education has always been the absolute mainstream of the whole industry. New Oriental has placed heavy bets on the good future, ape counseling and homework help, and almost all its wealth has been put on it.
After the release of the "double reduction document", the share prices of listed companies in the education and training industry plummeted, abolishing business lines, reducing employees and transforming. After the god of fate took back his favor, the dance music came to an abrupt end, not only the big boss, but all the people who flew into the air fell at a high speed.
But no one expected that the head enterprises cooked by the spotlight were still struggling, but giant education took the lead. On the last day of August, Giant Education released an official message: due to operational difficulties, it could not continue to provide teaching services to students in autumn, nor could it complete the refund of all students' fees.
On this day, the distance shortening policy was officially released, but it was only 37 days.
I saw in the circle of friends that some of the joining training teachers of Giant Education said that they had left their jobs, while others said that their salaries had not been paid and their insurance had not been paid. Teacher Wang panicked. His affiliated school still has money in Giant. On August 30, the day before the official closure of the giant, she asked in the franchisee group: "Now that our organization is closed, can the deposit be refunded directly?" "
The little housekeeper of Giant Education suggested that she should take something in kind if possible, because "it is hard to say at present and in the future."
The real thing is the giant's teaching material. Teacher Wang said, "The key is to get it back. There is no place to use it." The little housekeeper replied, "Think about it, and then ..."
Books may be the only thing that giants can exchange directly for everyone.
On September 9, at the registration hall of Giant School in Zhongguancun Street, Haidian, Beijing, the staff also suggested that Ms. Xu, the parent, exchange the tuition fees for some books.
Ms. Xu is anxious. "How much is this book? What about my more than 3000? " She is an old customer of the giant. In July this year, she just continued more than 10,000 yuan, 9,000 yuan is one-on-one, and 3,000 yuan is a class.
In addition to changing books, tuition fees can be transferred to other institutions through the third-party service organization "Meng Circle", and one-on-one tuition fees can be transferred to online one-on-one tutoring.
Ms. Xu is very entangled in whether to switch to online one-on-one. Her son is in grade three this year. "If you can't learn well, don't waste time." The staff comforted her that many teachers who Yimi tutored were giants, or "our teachers taught our children".
Of course, she can also choose to refund the fee. "If you want a refund, you can register and wait. “
Waiting is far away, and everyone knows it.
Although the police car to maintain order stopped at the door, the atmosphere in the registration hall was actually very calm. Parents and giant employees are well aware that everyone is a victim of the current chaotic situation.
Giant employees said that wages were not paid in July and August, and social security was cut off in August. At present, they are all taking arbitration.
What makes them even more angry is that the employees had no premonition before. Before the summer vacation, they had asked the company leaders if they could pay their salaries. "If we can't afford it, we won't consider starting a class." The leader assured them to continue the class. As a result, the salary of August 10 did not arrive as soon as the summer class was over.
At this time, the giant education headquarters located next to the registration hall is almost empty, and only CEO Luo Moming and other company management have not left. Luo Moming told me that there are still many things to be done, and we should "do our duty and start from the beginning to the end."
On the Internet, Meng Circle organized several transfer classes for parents of wealthy families according to the campus. Every day, training institutions publish transfer information in it. But almost all of them are small-scale institutions, and each family usually only receives a few classes. Parents usually have to dismember the class bag, choose both music and calligraphy, and then choose some programming to solve all the problems. Even if parents are willing to accept this plan, they don't know whether their children have so much energy to deal with it.
On September 14, I met Xiong Yin, the founder of Giant Education, and described to him the scene in the lovely circle: just like a lion falling down, small animals on the grassland shared their food around it. Xiong Yin thought the metaphor was very vivid and gave a wry smile.
On the legal level, Xiong Yin has nothing to do with giant education.
In 20 18, he completely emptied his shares in the giant. But as a founder who has worked in the company for 24 years, it is almost impossible to get rid of it emotionally.
1994, Xiong Yin, a 3 1 year-old bridge engineering teacher from Chongqing Jiaotong University, founded a giant education for primary and secondary school students. The year before, teachers from Peking University just started the New Oriental in Shanghai, mainly for overseas students. At this time, Zhang Bangxin is still studying in his hometown, and it will take nearly 10 years to make a career.
For a long time, Giant has been the leader of K 12 education and training industry in Beijing, and may even be the leader of the whole country, because Beijing has always been the place with the most concentrated educational resources.
According to media reports, as early as 2004, the number of branches of Giant in Beijing was close to 65.438 million+,with more than/kloc-0.0 million trainees and more than 4,000 teachers. In 20 10, Giant held a business invitation meeting, and more than 300 training schools nationwide paid 200,000 registration fees to join Giant. By 20 13, the number of schools, including giant franchise stores, will be close to 400, and the income of direct stores alone will exceed 10 billion yuan.
In 20 18, Xiong Yin retired from the giants. Only two years later, the giant declared bankruptcy.
Now that the Sri Lankan people have left, things have gone away, leaving a bleak ending. With the full stop, the precipitation of the Xiong Yin era surfaced, and the media often blamed Xiong Yin for the giant's failure.
It is reported that Yin's ambition is good, and his ears are soft, so there is always a "crying baby's milk" among the rich and powerful. Under this management mode that sensibility is higher than rationality, there are more and more company executives. Where there are many people, there are rivers and lakes, and above the rivers and lakes is factional struggle.
At the same time, giant education has long been a "mom-and-pop shop" model, which not only leads to disagreement among top decision makers, but also intensifies the company's reform culture.
The confusion in management made the giant suffer from the loss of backbone for a long time. It is called the "Whampoa Military Academy" of the teaching and training industry, which is both a compliment and an irony: it can't keep people.
In 2009, Xu Yucheng, former vice president of Giant Education, led more than 20 teaching and research teams to leave and founded Gauss. 20 13, 10 Hu Di, former principal of Beijing Giant School, Sun Shutao, former principal of primary school, and Lv Fei, former principal of middle school, started their own businesses and founded Excellence Education Technology Co., Ltd.; In 20 16, the former senior vice president Xindu led the team to leave and set up Zhuge Tangxue, also known as fighting god Dayu.
These companies later became competitors of giants,
In addition, in order not to fall behind, Xiong Yin was once obsessed with listing, which led to his reckless business several times.
In September, 2007, Giant accepted the investment of 20 million dollars from Qi Ming Venture Capital and SIG, which was the largest financing in the field of K 12 in China at that time. In order to complete this financing gamble, Xiong Yin started a crazy acquisition nationwide. In just one year, he bought 18 schools in 18 cities across the country. These acquisitions have not only failed to help the company complete the gambling, but have become a burden.
20 13 In August, Xiong Yin introduced1500,000 yuan from CreditEase to buy back the shares of Qiming Chuangtou and SIG, and the listing plan was restarted again. Xiong Yin also put forward an ambitious goal: the "Double Ten Plan", that is, the number of students in school reached 6,543.8 billion, and the annual income reached 6,543.8 billion.
However, the chaotic corporate governance at that time could not support this goal. In order to achieve the goal in the book, the method has become more and more radical. Eager to expand cash flow, the giant once launched the "Love Learning Card", which is a financial product with a face value ranging from 30,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan. According to the amount of card purchase, students can be provided with courses ranging from 5,000 yuan to 1.8 million yuan, which is equivalent to interest. After the "Love Learning Card" is activated for 2 years, the balance in the card can be fully returned.
Many love learning cards are bought by their own sales and teachers, and then they sell the donated courses to make a profit. There are many similar situations, and the company is becoming more and more chaotic.
The following year, exhausted, Xiong Yin had to introduce Tsinghua Tiki again, making Tiki a major shareholder. After Tsinghua Teach took office, he strictly controlled the cost of the giant, and the effect was immediate. In the second year, he made a net profit of 45 million yuan.
Everything looked good at first, but in 20 18, Xiong Yin and Tsinghua Teach sold the company to elite education for 700 million yuan.
I asked Xiong Yin why he chose to leave. He replied, "the pit is filled, but the plate is getting smaller and smaller." 600 million last year, 500 million this year and 400 million next year. " At that moment, he knew that he was getting farther and farther away from many goals and simply gave up.
The founder's withdrawal did not stop the giant from falling. For enterprises, there is no perfect founder and no perfect management, and similarly, it will not always be smooth sailing.
In the journey of the giant landing, there are several obvious accelerations, which are determined by the change of the wind direction of the times.
Lao Zhang, a senior teacher and trainer, told me that the giant can become the "king of teaching and training" in Beijing, largely because it is doing well. Yin is kind. Although he is restricted in management, he can make good friends. Therefore, in the era of the prevalence of pit classes, giants can obtain abundant resources from famous schools.
However, since 20 12, the Beijing municipal government has cracked down on pit-occupying classes many times. Until 20 18 "Notice on Effectively Reducing Extra-curricular Burden of Primary and Secondary Schools and Carrying out Special Governance Action of Off-campus Training Institutions" was issued, the class occupation disappeared completely. At the same time, there are several famous schools in cheat people, such as Dragon School, Chinese School and JinFan. And chain training institutions like Giant, although not closed, have also been greatly affected.
It was also in 20 18 that elite acquired the giant. At that time, Zhang Xi, the founder of Giant Network, was ambitious and planned to set up 500 schools nationwide in five years to serve 500,000 students, with a revenue of 5 billion yuan and listing.
However, the good times did not last long. However, half a year later, the COVID-19 epidemic broke out, and offline training institutions completely stopped running schools. The balance of the times is completely biased towards the net text side. Through a large number of advertisements and free live classes during the "suspension" period, online head education enterprises have gained a huge number of students, many of whom come from offline institutions.
In fact, it's not that giants don't see the wheel of the times turning. Xiong Yin said that the giant has long seen the future of online. As early as 20 14, the giant began to focus on developing the giant online school business. That year, he predicted that "in the next three years, the online income of giant education will definitely exceed the income of offline education."
But it turns out that it is difficult for a company with good performance in its main business to break through the second growth curve. In the following years, the giant's online business made little progress.
When the epidemic was stable, although offline institutions resumed classes one after another, online institutions had already precipitated huge flows, and at the same time, there were unimaginable capital blessings from the giants, who began to expand and compete crazily.
Ironically, looking back today, the competition between online organizations is almost absurd. Until the day when the "Double Health Policy" was released, all institutions were still "shopping". Even though they lost a lot of blood, no one killed anyone. However, the bloody battle of online institutions is a devastating blow to offline institutions.
The dimension of attack is three-dimensional. In addition to robbing students and social resources, competition also leads to strict consistency supervision. From the gradual supervision of tuition funds at the beginning of 20021to the introduction of "double reduction policy" in July, it has brought great challenges to the cash flow of training institutions.
In educators' cognition, this industry is just like agriculture, with spring ploughing and autumn harvest, and sowing in rotation in four seasons. Now Xia Dong is not allowed to sow in two seasons, and even in peacetime, farming is not allowed on holidays. Offline institutions can't even pay the fees. Because the cost is rigid, classrooms and wages are determined according to the previous market. It is impossible to withdraw rent from the house and let employees leave their jobs without pay as soon as they arrive in winter and summer vacations and holidays.
At present, enterprises with online capabilities still have room to move, so New Oriental and Good Future are closing a large number of offline teaching points and desperately "dumping" students online. However, there is not much room for chain institutions under the pure line. Just like soldiers with cold weapons in the hot weapons era, they became cannon fodder in this war.
In 2020, Yousheng Education closed down, and in 20021year, Giant Education closed down.
In 20 18, the education circle had a big meal. Yu and Zhang Bangxin sat in the first place, and the only wife Mi sat in the middle. Zhang Xi also attended the dinner. Yu said, "How dare you? I have never dared to buy a giant for ten years! " Zhang Bangxin went on to say, "I dare not even think about it."
For more than 20 years, a group of China education and training giants started from the square around Huang Zhuang, Haidian, competing with each other. How many grudges and enmities are not worth mentioning, so they really have to commit themselves to the couch and have scruples beyond commercial interests.
People involved in the acquisition of giants told me that there are many enterprises that throw hydrangeas at giants, including Park Shin Education. However, in 20 17, Wang, the former vice president of giant education science, led 37 core teaching and research colleagues to leave their jobs and join Park Shin Education. This pain has not healed, and the shareholders of the giant have rejected Park Shin.
Elite is different. The elite are from Shanghai. Although Zhang Xi entered Beijing in 20 10, he lived in Shanghai and had little contact with the big shots in Beijing.
Yin Xiongyuan has high hopes for this acquisition. "I hope this giant can bring added value to Zhang Xi, instead of turning into a mess in his hands." And Zhang Xi also promised: "Resolutely do not lay off employees, resolutely raise salaries, and resolutely become bigger and stronger!"
Now, it backfires.
At the beginning of August, Luo Mouming shouted in the internal group of the company. With the implementation of the "double reduction" policy, giant education is facing extremely difficult transformation and greater operating pressure. "Elite education, as a core shareholder with educational feelings, should not and will not ignore giant education when it is most difficult."
However, only on June 5438+0 1 day, Luo Mouming told the employees of the company that Elite Education decided not to invest in Giant Online School. I left him when the promise was not fulfilled.
At this moment, the elites have been trying to distance themselves from the giants. In an article on the 4th of this month, Zhang Xi positioned Elite as one of the original investors of Giant Network, and said that he would not continue to invest or participate in the actual operation.
Zhang Xi said so, but it also makes sense. As early as the beginning of the acquisition, there was an individual shareholder named Geng, who was the major shareholder.
However, insiders of the giant told me that the elite actually wholly acquired the giant, but initially wanted the giant to go public independently, so there was no merger. Remarkably, now that the giant has closed down, the risk has been isolated from the main body of elite listed companies.
After all, it is difficult for elites themselves. According to the latest financial report, as of February 28th, 20021year, Elite achieved revenue of 932 million yuan, up 5.2% year-on-year, and net profit was-172 million yuan, down 948.78% year-on-year.
On September 18, Elite's share price was USD 0.38, down 90% from the beginning of the year. According to the rules of new york Stock Exchange, the company is on the verge of delisting.
The wheel of the times has turned sharply, and the huge centrifugal force has caught those who are not psychologically prepared off guard. When acquiring the giant, Elite invited many elite educators to join, including Luo Moming. Luo used to be assistant to the vice president of New Oriental. He started his business on 20 18, and later joined the giant with entrepreneurial projects.
Zhang Xi made a commitment to these elites, and publicly stated that he would take out 65,438+00% equity for team motivation. Now, these promises are shattered with the collapse of the giant. It is understood that at present, the management who sticks to the giant can't get full salary.
Any complaints? I asked the management of the above giants. He said, yes. However, people later realized that the shareholders of this limited liability company had fulfilled their obligations with their capital contribution. "I will save myself? Rational thinking, I won't. "
Lao Zhang asked me a question: "Should a debt-ridden family continue to treat terminally ill children?" The child is not his own. "I thought about it. Under extreme conditions, people will bow to reality.
After all, individuals are so small that those who once swore to each other are powerless in the face of great changes.
Let's fly separately. Right? Yeah, that's not right either.
(Text: Lao Zhang and Ms. Xu are both pseudonyms)