On April 22nd, 20 13, Li Jingwei, the founder of Jianlibao, closed his eyes forever at the age of 74.
Two days later, in an old house in Sanshui City, Foshan City, Guangdong Province, white candles were burning high, and the canopy was stifling with sobs all over the house.
People came to pay their respects in an endless stream, many of them were old employees of Jianlibao, and those old people with white hair cried their eyes out. In the impression of many Jianlibao employees, Li Jingwei last appeared nine years ago-2004.
That year, Jianlibao was almost shut down by Zhang Hai, and the Sanshui government held a staff meeting. Li Jingwei was in a wheelchair, and he was guilty of "double regulations" to boost morale. He waved to the employees who tried to squeeze in and wanted to shake hands with him, and kept smiling at them.
Between this cry and smile, there are many grievances and ups and downs.
Now that Li Jingwei has left, where is Jianlibao, the "first brand of national drinks"?
Strong man Li Jingwei
Li Jingwei's life is quite tragic, which seems doomed from his birth.
1939, Li Jingwei was born in a small town called Bai Ni in Sanshui County. He was a posthumous child and spent his childhood in an orphanage in Dongshan District, Guangzhou. When he was older, he began to fend for himself. Li Jingwei never talked bluntly about his experiences as a teenager. He once polished leather shoes, worked as a coolie, worked as a printer, and fanned the rich in the theater. However, he failed to go to school for a day.
Coincidentally, Li Jingwei, who was in his early thirties, was promoted to be the deputy director of Sanshui County Sports Commission, but the good times didn't last long. Because he was excluded, he was transferred to Sanshui Winery as the factory director. This year, Li Jingwei was 36 years old.
At that time, this so-called "winery" was just a workshop factory with only a few rice wine jars, with the highest output value of only1300,000 and the annual net profit of only tens of thousands. Li Jingwei personally carried rice wine from Foshan to Guangzhou every day and went door to door to promote it.
Some people say that there is a gambler in Li Jingwei's character, and he gambled three times in his life to change his fate.
The first time was 1982.
This year, Li Jingwei overheard that someone had developed a drink that "can make athletes recover their strength quickly" and ordinary people can drink it, so he asked around and finally found Ouyang Xiao, a researcher at Guangdong Institute of Sports Science.
Li Jingwei immediately decided to take out the meager profit of the winery and fully support Ouyang Xiao to continue his research, trying to develop a new type of drink that integrates taste and nutrition.
1April, 984, "Jianlibao" was born, and the time came for Li Jingwei to make great achievements.
soar up into the sky with one start—amaze the world with the first achievements
"Jianlibao" came out, how to make the first shot? Li Jingwei decided to gamble again.
At this time, less than four months before the opening of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, Li Jingwei decided to sponsor 12 special drinks for the national team at a price of 250,000 yuan. This was a gamble for Sanshui Winery with an annual output value of just over 900,000 yuan and a net profit of less than 50,000 yuan.
But Li Jingwei won the bet again.
In this Olympic Games, China athletes won 15 gold medals, and China women's volleyball team was even more unstoppable, beating the host team, the United States, and achieving the miracle of "three consecutive championships". While shocking the world and rejoicing the whole country, the media at home and abroad noticed that China athletes were drinking a drink called Jianlibao, and "China Magic Water" quickly became popular.
(In those days, women volleyball players, coaches and Jianlibao)
"Jianlibao" became famous overnight, and its sales soared to 3.45 million in that year, nearly five times in the second year, and its sales reached16.5 million. By 1989, in five years, Jianlibao's sales soared by 140 times!
Li Jingwei's "gold medal marketing" won a great victory. Every day, Sanshui County can see trucks pulling goods from all over the country, and a batch of wagons for Jianlibao was fired to 20,000 when it was the most tight.
Li Jingwei, who tasted the sweetness, made great efforts. 1987 bought the exclusive right to drink in the 6th National Games of Guangzhou for 2.5 million yuan, and launched the first TV advertisement, "Good health in the New Year, please drink Jianlibao". 190 invested again16 million sponsored the Asian Games, and launched a new TV advertisement "Please drink Jianlibao if you want to be healthy" to highlight the health care function.
Then, on turning around, Jianlibao took back an order of 750 million yuan at the autumn sugar and wine party in 10 that year.
Since then, "Jianlibao" has triumphed all the way. 199 1 year, Jianlibao set up an American branch, and spent 5 million yuan to buy a whole floor of the Empire State Building in New York. 1993, planned a photo of Hillary Clinton, the first lady of the United States, drinking Jianlibao. Jianlibao, the "Oriental Magic Water", has been firmly established as the first brand in China, and has also become the first China beverage brand to enter the United Nations.
be bogged down in crisis
1994, the anniversary of Jianlibao's founding 10, Li Jingwei hired all the five-star hotels in Guangzhou for a big banquet.
This year, the annual sales of Jianlibao reached1800 million yuan, which was far behind other brands.
This year, the International Asteroid Naming Committee named an asteroid "Sanshui Jianlibao Star", which is the first planet named after a company in the world.
1996, the sales volume of Jianlibao soared to 700,000 tons, far exceeding the 500,000 tons of Pepsi, becoming the only national brand that could compete with Pepsi at that time!
1997, Jianlibao reached its brilliant peak, with annual sales exceeding 5 billion yuan in one fell swoop. The 38-storey Jianlibao Building rose from the ground and its headquarters moved to Guangzhou. Jianlibao has become a legend in national enterprises, and Li Jingwei, which has made Jianlibao bigger, is also popular for half the sky.
When Jianlibao is in full swing, the environment of China is also undergoing earth-shaking changes. 1at the end of 996, China began a vigorous reform of state-owned enterprises, which made the property rights more clear through the reorganization of state-owned enterprises.
Many large state-owned enterprises began to implement the withdrawal of state-owned shares. At that time, the most famous case was the restructuring of Hunan Friendship Apollo Company. The state-owned shares of the company retreated to 20%, 40% of the 80% shares were held by management and backbone, and the remaining 40% were held by private capital. Apollo, which completed the transformation, developed rapidly and was regarded as the benchmark of state-owned enterprise reform by the State Council SASAC.
At the same time, enterprises such as TCL and Midea in South China have also started restructuring. Li Dongsheng, the person in charge of TCL, signed a decentralized operation agreement with Huizhou Municipal Government, and the government promised that the management can purchase the equity of the value-added enterprise in a certain proportion. In Guangzhou, Midea Group was sold to the team of its founder, He Xiangjian.
The trend of state-owned enterprise reform made Li Jingwei see the hope and excitedly began to plan the strategic issue of "listing the stock and completing the building".
Li Jingwei once asked the people around him when Chu Shijian fell from his horse in hongta group: Suppose Hongtashan lost money and Jianlibao lost money, and the state has to take money to supplement it. The loss may be even greater. Why is there no corresponding reward?
Just this answer, he may not have figured it out in the end.
Dispute over property rights
The transfer of Jianlibao's headquarters to Guangzhou is a great event to celebrate, but it has worsened the relationship between Jianlibao and Sanshui Municipal Government. Jianlibao Group is the most important source of profits and taxes for the local government. At its peak, the profits and taxes paid by Jianlibao accounted for 45% of the local fiscal revenue.
It is said that the construction of Jianlibao Building was not approved by Sanshui Municipal Government, and the high cost made the government suspect that it was suspected of transferring assets. In order to strengthen the control of Jianlibao Group, every new product developed by the Group must be approved by the local government.
1In the autumn of 1997, the Li Jingwei team carefully planned the listing of Jianlibao in Hong Kong. When the government examined it, it rejected the application of Li Jingwei's management team to buy shares. Li Jingwei gave up listing in a rage, the bad relationship between enterprises and the government was officially made public, the dispute over property rights broke out, and Jianlibao began to decline gradually.
1999, Li Jingwei proposed to the government to implement the employee stock cooperative system within the company, and the management raised 450 million yuan to buy the shares held by the government. The plan was rejected again.
By 200 1 year, in less than four years, the annual sales of Jianlibao suddenly dropped from the highest period of 5.4 billion to 3 1 billion, and the profits and taxes paid to the government also fell from 1 billion yuan to 20 million. In July, Sanshui government held a joint meeting for Jianlibao and decided to sell Jianlibao.
As soon as the news came out, many investment institutions, such as Danone, Morgan Stanley, HSBC Investment Fund and Xinjiang Delong, expressed great interest.
Three months after the joint meeting, Li Jingwei was told to attend a dinner, during which he was told that he would sell the shares of Jianlibao 100% for 380 million yuan, and the buyer was Singapore First Food Company. This news made Li Jingwei blow his head off, and Jianlibao, which he had worked hard to run, was sold inexplicably to a foreign businessman, but he was turned away when he clearly offered a higher price.
In a fit of pique, Li Jingwei released news to the media. At that time, the domestic media were flooded with news about "Jianlibao was ruthlessly sold" and "the flag of the first national brand in China was cut". In the end, under the pressure of public opinion, this acquisition plan aborted. The relationship between Li Jingwei and the government has also reached the point of incompatibility.
Li Jingwei put forward his MBO plan again by taking advantage of the public opinion, and was willing to buy Jianlibao for 450 million yuan, which was his last gamble in his life.
At this time, the government has found a good home-Wahaha, Hangzhou. Zong Qinghou is a typical Zhejiang businessman. Although he was very tempted by this acquisition, he was very cautious. In the end, Wahaha chose to give up under the soft and hard bubble of Li Jingwei.
The sale of Jianlibao has been delayed until 2002 1 month, and the Spring Festival is coming soon. Spring Festival is a peak season for beverage sales, and the government has decided to completely solve the sales problem before the peak season comes. So, they finally let go and promised to give the Li Jingwei team a week to raise money, so that he could buy Jianlibao with 450 million yuan at a time.
However, on the 6th day, Li Jingwei, who was raising funds everywhere, was summoned to the municipal government and was told that he had decided to sell Jianlibao to Zhejiang SDIC. The next day, a hasty signing ceremony was held. Zhejiang SDIC bought 75% shares of Jianlibao for 338 million yuan, and Zhang Hai became the chairman.
At the signing ceremony, Li Jingwei sat silently in the corner of the venue. The Xinhua News Agency reporter took a photo of him "facing the sky with tears and not saying a word", which was published in major media the next day, and the audience was moved.
On the ninth day after the signing ceremony, Li Jingwei had a sudden cerebral hemorrhage at home, and he never got sick again. 10 In mid-October, Li Jingwei received a notice from his deathbed that he was "double-regulated" on suspicion of corruption. Until 20 1 1 year, Li Jingwei was sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment 15 years according to law, and his personal property150,000 yuan was confiscated.
The rest of Li Jingwei's life is final.
beat the drum and pass the flowers
From then on, Jianlibao began the era of Zhang Hai. Only two years after 28-year-old Zhang Hai took charge of Jianlibao, the enterprise began to turn from profit to loss, and the debt reached 2 1 100 million yuan. The supplier stopped supplying raw materials and the speed of finished products off the assembly line slowed down sharply.
In August 2004, Zhang Hai was dismissed. During his tenure, the total amount of funds transferred and embezzled from Jianlibao reached 700 million yuan! In March of the following year, Zhang Hai was arrested and jailed on suspicion of "occupation by post" and "misappropriation of funds", and was sentenced to 10 year.
In 2004, Jianlibao was almost shut down by Zhang Hai, and Li Jingwei was in a wheelchair. He tried to boost his morale by "double regulations". He waved to the employees who tried to shake hands with him and kept smiling at them. Many employees still remember this scene years later.
After Zhang Hai, Zhu Weisha took over the plate of Jianlibao, but it was soon investigated. The media reported that he had set aside 51100,000 China Ping An legal person shares from Jianlibao, which made him make a profit of 4 billion. Wishing Visha immunity from prosecution in 2007.
Since then, Jianlibao has changed hands several times and gradually declined. In 2005, it was acquired by Taiwan Province Uni-President Group.
Jianlibao, a national brand that can compete with Pepsi, may no longer be comparable to Pepsi, but it has gradually returned to the original positioning of Li Jingwei as a "sports functional beverage" and is trying to find a way in the market.
On Jianlibao official website, we can still see that Jianlibao won the title of "Big Taxpayer with Over 100 Million Yuan" in Sanshui District for four consecutive years. Perhaps, the legend of Jianlibao has not yet ended.