An announcement made the investors of Suning Tesco (002024.SZ) suspended their hearts due to the suspension of trading on the company's "significant issues".
On February 25, 2021, Suning.com announced that the company’s actual controller and controlling shareholder Zhang Jindong and Suning Appliance Group are planning to change the control rights. The transfer ratio is estimated to be 20%-25%, and the equity transferee belongs to infrastructure, etc. industry. To Suning Tesco's investors, it is very gratified that it has been reported that several state-owned enterprises in Jiangsu Province will become the transferees of this equity transfer.
Suning.com has a high probability of becoming a state-owned holding company. The acquisition of state-owned assets will not only greatly enhance Suning.com's financial strength and market competitiveness, but more importantly, state-owned assets' recognition of its investment value, which will also become the "ballast stone" for its long-term stable development in the future.
Therefore, for those investors who have enjoyed Suning's long-term development dividends, Suning.com, which further optimizes the company's equity structure, will once again be improved in terms of corporate governance, business development, and comprehensive credit, and the future is still promising.
For the core team of Zhang Jindong and Suning.com, Suning.com, a member of the "national team", will be a new starting point, and will be in the strategic journey of "focusing on retail" and upgrading "retail service providers" Go on more firmly.
Comprehensively interpreting Suning Tesco's equity change, the author believes that this will be an important measure and turning point for its capital market performance and industry competition, and it is also the best choice to balance the development of the company and the interests of all parties.
From this, we can also see Zhang Jindong's personal structure and overall outlook of the company's development as the founder of the company.
Suning will still be that Suning
Zhang Jindong is the one who knows Suning Tesco best.
Although the holding structure of Suning Tesco will change after the equity transfer is concluded, it is foreseeable that the person who will be in the development of Suning Tesco will still be Zhang Jindong.
If the follow-up is indeed the entry of state-owned assets, referring to previous cases, state-owned assets may enter the board of directors, but will not participate in actual operations. In the end, Suning.com is likely to still be managed and operated by Zhang Jindong and his team.
Public information shows that Zhang Jindong, Suning Holding Group and Suning Appliance Group, which he actually controls, hold about 42% of Suning Tesco's shares. Even if the 20%-25% of Suning Tesco's shares are transferred, Zhang Jindong still directly Or indirectly own a higher proportion of equity and voting rights.
In fact, Zhang Jindong has taken this step into consideration for a long time. As early as ten years ago, when the author talked to Zhang Jindong about the issue of "state-owned capital and private enterprises", Zhang Jindong said that Suning is open. If it is beneficial to the development of China's retail industry, why can Suning not become a state-owned enterprise? .
At the 30th anniversary of Suning, Zhang Jindong also mentioned: "When a company is small, it belongs to the individual, and when it is big, it belongs to the country. Every step of Suning's development must serve social needs and national policies." At the same time, Zhang Jindong also understood. , The long-term development of an enterprise is inseparable from the country and policies.
What is the purpose of being a business? On this issue, it is obvious that Zhang Jindong puts personal interests and gains and losses behind the long-term interests of the enterprise. After all, it is difficult to avoid the contradiction between personal emotions and corporate development for "a child who has raised it for more than 30 years." However, as an industrialist, as Zhang Jindong once said, doing retail is a hard business and must be realistic and down-to-earth. development of.
With Zhang Jindong's influence and reputation in the business world, it is not that there are more options to reorganize Suning. However, the introduction of state-owned capital is more conducive to broadening Suning.com's future development. Therefore, Zhang Jindong, who has a long-term view, can make such a decision. This will also enhance the confidence of the outside world in the development of Suning.com.
Several hidden benefits
Although Suning.com will undergo major changes at the equity level, from the announcement and many information, we still see several hidden benefits of Suning.com's development.
First, for Suning, who will undergo major changes in 2020, and 2021 will be a critical year for future development, Zhang Jindong's still at the helm means the continuation of its changes. This will help the company to "steadily advance its long-term strategy," Suning Tesco also mentioned in the announcement.
Second, all changes require capital and resources as support, and this share transfer means capital for Suning. At present, Suning.com’s total share capital is 9.310 billion shares. According to the closing price of 7 yuan per share on February 24, the 20%-25% share transfer means 13.034 billion to 16.293 billion yuan. For Suning, the arrival of tens of billions of funds can accelerate its strategic transformation.
Third, the entry of state-owned assets also means more hidden benefits for Suning, such as more open resource docking, such as favorable policies and financing. Suning.com also publicly stated that if state-owned assets enter the bureau, the financial strength will be strengthened, which will further promote the development of Suning.com in the retail industry. More importantly, Suning.com may turn into a state-owned holding company.
Some investors commented that: "If state-owned assets are introduced, it will greatly benefit financial credit, government procurement and supply chain integration..." This view occupies the majority of Suning Tesco's investors.
Suning Tesco is still promising
Although the expansion of the simple user terminal has increased due to the exhaustion of the dividends of online and offline traffic, in the broader retail field, an industry-wide retail upgrade from top to bottom, from large to small, and from shallow to deep is underway. Alibaba, Tencent, and Weimob all took a fancy to this area and carried out a B-end retail revolution.
Suning also invested in this field early, with the retail cloud in the low-tier market, opening up the integration of offline and online retail empowerment; with open logistics capabilities, it is committed to improving the digital capabilities of the entire industry's logistics.
Financial report data shows that in 2020, Suning Retail Cloud will open 3,201 new stores, with a total of over 8,000. The sales scale has increased by more than 100% year-on-year, and it has achieved profitability. The cumulative number of users served in the county and township markets across the country has exceeded 200 million.
The retail cloud that penetrates into the country’s towns and villages has provided local retail, especially home appliance 3C retailers, with digital improvement space and more possibilities.
Niu Tiesheng of Langfang, Hebei, has been selling mobile phones for more than 20 years. After joining Retail Cloud, he does not need to stay in the store all the time. Instead, he can realize online management through "Retail Cloud Manager", etc., and keep abreast of sales, prototypes, purchases, profits and other data; no Whatever you buy and sell, you can display millions of products through the "cloud shelf", no longer limited to the size of the store, nor reduce the risk of stockpile and slow sales.
In 2020, while clearly focusing on the main retail business, Suning also further clarified this trend of opening to the outside world, upgrading from a "retailer" to a "retail service provider", and using technology as the driving force to export supply chain, logistics, scenarios, finance and Technology and other service capabilities help more small and medium retailers to achieve digitalization.
In November 2020, with its full-scenario retail platform and advantages, Suning gave birth to Yunwangwandian Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yunwangwandian"), which is committed to providing users and merchants with the integration of e-commerce and local Internet. Transaction services, as well as retail cloud services that provide supply chain, logistics, after-sales and various formats for retailers and suppliers.
Various physical stores of Suning.com will enter Yunwangwandian to further attract regional merchants. In short, the significance of Yunwangwandian is to open up Suning’s 30 years of omni-channel operation capabilities, supply chain, and logistics to many retail companies, especially offline small, medium and micro retailers, and drive the digitalization of the entire social retail industry. development of.
On the evening of the 30th of the month of its establishment, Yunwangwandian announced that it had completed a 6 billion yuan A round of financing led by Shenzhen Venture Capital. This financing plan is used for user development, R&D investment, platform operation, etc., and is expected to catalyze the accelerated development of Suning's opening up and empowerment plan.
Strategically upgrade to a "retail service provider" and extend the "service" users from mass consumers to tens of thousands of small, medium and micro economies, from ToC to To B. This is to meet the requirements of Suning's further development and also the needs of the times . "It is our duty to be the Suning that users need and Suning that society needs." Zhang Jindong once said.
In December last year, Zhang Jindong mentioned in the deployment of Suning for the next ten years that as a retail service provider, Suning will continue to strengthen its empowerment in three key areas of small and micro businesses, rural areas, and industrial manufacturing.
For small and micro enterprises, promote the entry of online open platforms and the empowerment of offline community outlets; for rural areas, use retail cloud, rural industrial bases, etc. to promote rural revitalization; for manufacturing, guide upstream production, R&D, and manufacturing by sharing data resources , To help China's smart manufacturing from the consumer side.
With the entry of state-owned assets, Suning's "service to society" attribute will undoubtedly be strengthened, and its road of empowerment of small and micro enterprises, villages, and manufacturing will also go smoother.
Conclusion
In the last ten years, Suning achieved large-scale innovation. In the next ten years, Suning needs to take these innovations into practice and turn them into profit on a larger scale. Opening up its own innovation capabilities and infrastructure is undoubtedly the best path.
The transfer of shares to state-owned assets may be regarded as a higher level of Suning's opening, and this opening will also add "ammunition" to Suning's long-term development for the next ten years.