Chapter 60 A non-technical failure

No profession is as utilitarian as being an entrepreneur. A great love does not need a happy ending as a footnote, sometimes even the opposite.A peerless samurai may have died in a conspiracy of the younger generation, but this does not prevent his fame from living forever.Even a poet or a novelist can stand there and be admired forever if they have produced a poem or a great book at some point in their life. But as an entrepreneur, I am not so lucky. There is only one possibility for an entrepreneur's success to be remembered and extolled, and that is: the enterprise he created is still creating miracles.Entrepreneurs always need some visible and quantifiable material and data to prove their value.These materials and data must also maintain a certain growth rate every year, and even the growth rate should be faster than his peers, otherwise, it will be difficult for him to be regarded as successful.

It is also this characteristic that constitutes the "unfortunate fate" of entrepreneurs: unless they exit the stage, they can never be defined by success. The extremely intelligent and courageous Sun Hongbin fell into this "unfortunate fate". In July 2006, Sun Hongbin confessed to his confidants: he had already deposited all his family savings into the company one after another, and one of his credit cards had only two digits left. The rigid gap in funds was 500 million to 600 million yuan, and his debt was as high as 300 million yuan. More than 100 million yuan.As far as the base Tianjin market is concerned, all available houses have been sold out, but the remaining projects in hand have not been able to start, and some even have no money for demolition.In fact, Sunco has reached the point where it has run out of ammunition and food.

On September 5, Sun Hongbin signed an equity transfer agreement with Hong Kong Road King Infrastructure Company.According to relevant clauses, Sunco China is divided into three parts: Sunco A, Sunco B and the Phoenix Land.The Road King Infrastructure Consortium respectively obtained the call option for 55% of the shares of Sunco A, with an exercise price of no more than 500 million yuan, and the validity period was 6 months; the call option for 55% of the shares of Sunco B, with an exercise price of no more than 400 million 100 million yuan, valid for 1 year; the exercise price of the call option for the Phoenix land plot is not more than 380 million yuan, valid for 9 months.

Sun Hongbin sold 55% of the equity at a price of 1.28 billion yuan, and basically lost control of Sunco. This is a very low transfer price and harsh payment terms.And three years ago, Sunco sold 905 million yuan for the Daxing land in Beijing alone. At the end of 2004, Sun Hongbin also settled the accounts with confidence and said: "Sunco has tens of millions of square meters of land at a suitable price. If it is resold at the market price, the land price alone will make a net profit of 5 billion yuan." "Chinese Entrepreneur" in In the comments, "the signal revealed by the transfer agreement is too obvious: what Sunco wants is life-saving money. Although it is small and expensive, it must be needed."Road King Infrastructure is a Hong Kong company that invests, operates and manages toll roads. It only entered the mainland real estate industry in early 2005 and is basically not well-known in the industry. In the first half of 2006, the company's net profit was 248 million Hong Kong dollars.

At the formal signing ceremony of the agreement, Sun Hongbin said to Shan Weibao, the chairman of the board of directors of Road King Infrastructure, who was full of smiles: "You bought a bargain." An entrepreneur who regards cash flow as the first element is ultimately defeated by the lack of cash flow.In this sense, the defeat of Sunco and Sun Hongbin was a failure without technical content.In an industry that is on a booming path—the real estate industry is still a rising industry in the long run despite the cold wave of macro-control—Sun Hongbin has made the growth of the company so rigid, which is really a shame. Very regrettable fact.

In October 2006, shortly after Sunco’s equity transfer, Vanke Group held a semi-annual high-level meeting by the West Lake in Hangzhou, where the sweet-scented osmanthus was first released. In his speech, Wang Shi repeatedly reminded his subordinates to remain rational and alert to crises.He said: "I should not criticize Sunco by name. From now on, I will not criticize other companies by name." Perhaps, in his opinion, a story about a dark horse has come to an end. After Sun Hongbin handed over the management rights of Sunco, he focused on the business of a company called Sunac Group (SUNAC).On Sunac’s website, it declares that “formally established in 2003, its main business is real estate development, operation and management, it holds several high-quality land in Tianjin, Chongqing and other places, and its annual development capacity is about 1 billion yuan.”Sun Hongbin deliberately avoided meeting with the media, and his name could not be found on Sunac's website or the beautifully produced brochures.This entrepreneur, who experienced strange bad luck in his thirties, fell into a painful hibernation again when "forty is not confused".However, he was just knocked down, not out, and he may have an even more amazing tomorrow.

In 1999, when Sun Hongbin was studying at Harvard Business School, he had an unforgettable experience of studying with his professional idol, Andrew Grove, who wrote "Only the Paranoid Can Survive".He commented on himself in a large forum and said: "My character is paranoid. The character of our company is: no matter what others say, no matter what difficulties we encounter, no matter whether you are a famous person or an ordinary person, we must go on firmly. , because we know the goal and know where we are going.” His words drew long applause. In fact, applause is sometimes very scary.Passion is often more likely to win applause, but passion is also the easiest to brew tragedy.