【中文标题】娃哈哈“最穷老板”登上首富宝座
【原文标题】China’s Thirst Makes Wahaha’s ‘Poorest Boss’ the Richest
【登载媒体】商业周刊
【原文作者】Michael Wei
【原文链接】http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-09/china-s-thirst-makes-wahaha-s-poorest-boss-the-richest.html
身家80亿美元的中国首富宗庆后每天的消费大约只有20美元，这位碳酸饮料和果汁饮料的巨头不赌博、不喝酒、不打高尔夫球，每天在公司的餐厅吃饭。
宗节俭的生活习惯也被他用来管理杭州娃哈哈集团有限公司——中国第三大软饮料公司。过去20年里，公司的总部一直位于中国东部城市杭州，火车站旁边一座灰色的6层楼里。娃哈哈前市场部总监商阳说，他记得身为共产党员的宗亲自审核每一项支出，甚至包括购买一把扫帚。
中国市场研究集团的上海总监Shaun Rein说：“他成功的一个原因就是对成本的控制，确保花出的每一分钱都可以挣到更多的钱。他从不炫富，他完全服从党的指挥。”
65岁的宗说他现在准备大手笔花钱了。股东人数有限的娃哈哈已经积累了20亿美元的扩张资金，包括准备开设100家百货店来进入零售业市场。3月1日，他在北京接受采访时说，他在1987年以14万元人民币（21300美元）起家的这家公司，在今年的销售额计划增长27％，达到700亿元人民币。
市场份额
宗说：“我要在未来5年里让娃哈哈进入世界500强公司的行列。”这位2007年在福布斯中国富豪排名第63位的中国人大代表，今年名列榜首。
宗说，娃哈哈会先在二线和三线城市开店，所采取的策略与他曾经把一家棒冰汽水店打造成在世界人口最稠密的国家市场份额超过百事的饮料公司相同。
娃哈哈果汁和矿泉水占据中国软饮料市场7.2％的市场份额，紧跟在可口可乐（17.2％）和康师傅（13.2％）之后，百事以6.6％的市场份额排名第四。宗说，在全国范围内开设商店和超市将会拓宽娃哈哈的销售网络。
他认为中国最大的城市中心，比如北京、上海和广州，都“已经被根深蒂固的竞争者所占据”，比如百盛集团，但小城市中依然有巨大的商机。北京的百盛平均利润率为26％，过去5年里它的收入翻了4倍，在2010年达到9.92亿元人民币。
毛的战略思想
在1998年到2003年期间任娃哈哈全国市场总监的商说，宗使用毛泽东“农村包围城市”的战略。中华人民共和国的缔造者毛，赢得内战的部分原因在于其在农村的牢固地位。
这位娃哈哈董事长在18岁中学毕业后的第一份工作，是在东部省份浙江沿海城市舟山的一个盐场中汲取海水。宗说，作为一名政府工作人员的儿子，他响应毛的号召到农村地区去。一年之后，他来到一个农场，在那里工作了14年。
大华继显控股有限公司上海的分析师Jason Yuan说：“宗了解中国的农村市场。如果娃哈哈计划进入零售市场，二线、三线，甚至四线城市应该是明智的选择。那里土地价格便宜很多，尤其是中国中西部地区。”
现金积累
宗说，娃哈哈已经开始与一些城市政府部门沟通，可能需要购买土地开设商店。进入零售市场会把娃哈哈销售额提升到1000亿元人民币，但他并未给出具体时间。公司去年收入增长了27％，达到550亿元人民币。
胡润富豪榜的创始人和编辑者Rupert Hoogewerf说：“坐拥130元人民币，的确很难决定拿这些钱来做什么，他的核心业务不需要额外投资这么多钱。”胡润富豪榜估计宗的财富为120亿美元，比福布斯的数字高出50％。
Rein说娃哈哈在零售业缺少经验，这个行业“水很深”。
宗认为，娃哈哈进入零售业的原因是“利润率远高于生产业”。他说他每天都在工作，甚至大部分中国人都会休息的春节假期也不例外。
没有时间
尽管宗极为富有，他平均每年的个人消费不超过5万元人民币。他说：“我的花的钱比我员工花的钱还少，就是因为我没有时间。”
如果不出差会见批发商，他每天早上7点开始工作，一直到晚上11点。他的办公室——650平方英尺的三角形房间——有一张床，以便他能够在这里过夜。
胡润的Hoogewerf说：“宗就像一支军队的将军。他穿着低调，没有任何奢侈的习惯，只是爱喝一种专门的茶叶，爱抽指定牌子的香烟。”
在3月1日的采访中，宗说他喜欢龙井绿茶和大卫杜夫香烟。
2007年，当他遇到北京大成律师事务所高级合伙人钱卫清时，更是烟不离嘴。这家律师事务所代理娃哈哈与达能之间的法律纠纷。宗当时卷入了与达能之间30多项法律诉讼，对方起诉他在1997年双方缔结的合作网络之外销售娃哈哈果汁和茶饮料。
钱说，这位亿万富翁害怕会失去他的公司，“他根本不知道胜诉的机会在哪里。”
达能收购
在中国和法国政府的安排下，娃哈哈在2009年夺回了自己的商标。达能发言人Sabrina Schneider表示对此无可奉告。
前娃哈哈高官商说，达能的初期投资和技术的确让娃哈哈受益。
“如果娃哈哈依靠自身发展，其速度会像滚雪球一样慢，很难迅速抓住市场中的机会。”
在农村工作了15年之后，宗回到浙江省会杭州。他的工作换了一个又一个，最后向亲戚借钱开了一家商店。他骑着三轮车出售零食和饮料。1988年，他开始了饮料生产业务。
他说：“创业的时候，我是中国最穷的老板。对我来说，挣钱意味着实现生命的价值。”
原文：
March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Zong Qinghou, China’s richest person with a fortune estimated to be at least $8 billion, says his personal spending averages $20 a day. The soda and juice magnate doesn’t gamble, drink or play golf and eats his meals at the company canteen.
Zong’s frugality extends to how he runs Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., the third-largest soft drinks company in China. Its headquarters for more than two decades have been in a six-floor gray building next to a railway station in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou. Former Wahaha marketing director Shang Yang said he remembers Zong, a Communist Party member, personally reviewing every expense, including the purchase of a broom.
“One of the reasons he’s been so successful is he keeps costs down, making sure every dollar spent goes toward making more money,” Shaun Rein, Shanghai-based managing director of China Market Research Group, said. “He doesn’t show off his wealth. He toes the party line.”
Zong, 65, says he’s now ready to spend. Closely held Wahaha has accumulated $2 billion in cash for expansion, including a foray into retailing with a planned 100 department stores. The company he started with a 140,000 yuan ($21,300) loan in 1987 aims to boost sales 27 percent this year to 70 billion yuan, he said in a March 1 interview in Beijing.
Market Share
“I want Wahaha to be among the world’s top 500 companies within five years,” said Zong, a delegate to China’s parliament whose ranking shot up from No. 63 on Forbes’ list of richest Chinese in 2007 to the top slot last year.
Wahaha will initially set up stores in second-tier or third-tier Chinese cities, Zong said, following the strategy he used to turn an ice-pop and soda shop into a beverage company with a higher market share than PepsiCo Inc. in the world’s most populous nation.
The maker of Wahaha-brand juices and mineral water controls 7.2 percent of China’s soft-drinks market, according to data from Euromonitor International. It trails Coca-Cola Co., with 17.2 percent, and Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Co., with 13.2 percent. PepsiCo ranks fourth at 6.6 percent. Building department stores and supermarkets across China will help widen Wahaha’s distribution network, said Zong.
China’s biggest urban centers such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have been “conquered by established players” such as Parkson Retail Group Ltd. and there’s greater potential for a new business in the smaller cities, he said. Beijing- based Parkson, which has a profit margin of 26 percent, quadrupled net income in the five years through 2010 to 992 million yuan.
Mao’s Strategy
Zong uses Mao Zedong’s strategy of “surrounding the cities from the countryside,” said Shang, Wahaha’s national marketing director from 1998 to 2003. Mao, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, won the country’s civil war at least partly by strengthening his position in rural areas.
The Wahaha chairman said his first job after finishing middle school at 18 was to collect brine at a salt farm in the port city of Zhoushan in eastern Zhejiang province. The son of a government clerk, Zong said he heeded Mao’s call to work in China’s countryside. A year later, he moved to an agricultural farm, where he worked for 14 years.
“Zong knows China’s rural markets and if Wahaha were to go into retail it would make sense for them to go into retail in second-tier, third-tier or even fourth-tier cities, because land prices are much lower, especially in central and western China,” said Jason Yuan, a Shanghai-based analyst at UOB-Kay Hian Holdings Ltd.
Cash Pile
Wahaha is already in talks with some city governments as it may need to buy land to open stores, Zong said. The expansion into retailing may further lift sales to 100 billion yuan, he said, without providing a timeframe. The company’s revenue grew 27 percent to 55 billion yuan last year.
“Sitting on a big cash pile of 13 billion yuan, it’s very difficult to know what to do with it,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, founder and compiler of the Hurun Report, which estimates Zong’s wealth at $12 billion, 50 percent more than Forbes’ approximation. “His key business doesn’t need that much extra money to invest.”
Still, Rein said Wahaha has no experience in retailing, a business that’s “not easy to understand.”
Wahaha will expand into retailing because the margins are “much better than in manufacturing,” according to Zong, who said he works every day including the Lunar New Year holidays, when most of China shuts down.
No Time
While Zong is wealthy, his personal annual spending doesn’t exceed 50,000 yuan, he said. “I spend less than my employees, simply because I have no time.”
When he isn’t traveling to meet distributors, he gets to work at 7 a.m. daily and finishes about 11 p.m. His office, a triangular 650 square foot room, has a bed for when he can’t make it home.
“Zong is like a general in the army,” said the Hurun Report’s Hoogewerf. “He dresses very low key, he doesn’t have any luxury habits with exception of drinking a certain type of tea and smoking a certain type of cigarette.”
Zong said he prefers Dragon Well green tea and chain smoked Davidoff cigarettes during the March 1 interview.
He was also chain smoking in 2007 when he first met Qian Weiqing, a senior partner of Beijing-based Dacheng Law Offices who represented Wahaha in its legal battle with Danone, the lawyer said. Zong was embroiled in more than 30 lawsuits with Danone, which accused him of selling Wahaha-branded juice and tea outside of their partnership formed in 1997.
The billionaire had feared he might lose his company, Qian said. “He didn’t know what the odds of winning were.”
Danone Buyout
Wahaha bought Danone out of their ventures in a 2009 deal brokered by the Chinese and French governments. Danone had no further comment, said Sabrina Schneider, a spokeswoman.
Wahaha benefited from Danone’s initial investment and expertise, said Shang, the former Wahaha executive.
“If Wahaha had built the business by itself, it would have been as slow as a rolling snowball and it may have caused delays in capturing market opportunities.”
After working in the countryside for 15 years, Zong returned to Hangzhou, Zhejiang’s capital, and moved from job to job before borrowing money from relatives and friends to set up a store. He also sold snacks and drinks while pedaling around on a tricycle before going into beverage making in 1988.
“I started my business career as China’s poorest chairman,” he said. “Making money to me means realizing the value of life.” |
狗仔卡
发表于 2011-3-31 15:49
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显身卡
发表于 2011-3-31 18:58
我在上海 一天吃到30块就很满足了...
