Chapter 43 1998 Breaking through the minefields

On March 19, 1998, the two sessions in Beijing.At 7 o'clock in the morning, Wu Xiaoli, an anchor of Hong Kong's Phoenix Satellite TV, came to the Great Hall of the People early to find a seat, hoping to get a chance to raise her hand to ask questions.At 10:30 in the morning, Zhu Rongji, the new Premier of the State Council, led the members of the new government into the press conference.As soon as the host finished speaking, the reporters rushed to raise their arms.Wu Xiaoli raised her hand many times, but was not noticed by the meeting host.At this moment, an unexpected thing happened.After answering questions from several reporters, Premier Zhu suddenly said, "Would you please take care of Ms. Wu Xiaoli from Hong Kong's Phoenix Satellite TV? I like the program she hosts very much." Zhu Rongji's friendly and humorous performance was refreshing.The Hong Kong stock market rose by more than 300 points that day.

Wu Xiaoli's question was: "The outside world calls you the economic tsar, do you like this title?" Zhu Rongji replied: "I don't like this title." Immediately afterwards, he spoke some impassioned words that will often be appreciated by people in the future.He said, "The First Session of the Ninth National People's Congress entrusted me with a heavy responsibility. I feel that the task is arduous, and I am afraid that I will fail the people's expectations of me. However, no matter whether there is a minefield or an abyss in front of me, I will go forward without hesitation, and I will do my best. , after death." According to Ling Zhijun's records, in the past two years, the debate on the reform of state-owned enterprises has been lingering, and there have been several "Wanyan Letters" opposing property rights reform in Beijing.It was December 1996 that Zhu Rongji's generous feelings about the future of reform were first revealed in public.He was watching the drama "Shang Yang" in Beijing. Shang Yang set off the reform of Qin State with amazing courage, and was finally fettered by the diehards and died of a broken car.According to the newspaper description, Zhu Rongji was moved by the plot and burst into tears.

The descriptions of "breaking through the minefields" and "the abyss" fully reveal the difficulty of pushing China's reforms to a deeper level.Zhu Rongji will complete his term as Premier. He promised to accomplish three things within these four years. First, to ensure that the renminbi does not depreciate; second, to activate the economy and domestic demand; It is imperative to ensure that the RMB does not depreciate.Since last year, Soros, the financial tycoon, has raided all over Southeast Asia and has no rivals. Then he set his sights on China. China is the most important economic power in Asia. To add insult to injury. At the end of October 1997, the World Bank held its annual meeting in Hong Kong. Soros, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir, and Russian Prime Minister Chubais were all invited to attend the meeting. Whether the RMB depreciated became the most sensitive and important topic of the annual meeting.The World Bank held a special lecture specially for Zhu Rongji.In his speech on the 22nd, Zhu Rongji solemnly stated, "China will adhere to the position of not depreciating the renminbi and assume the historical responsibility of stabilizing the Asian financial environment." As soon as this remark was made, the leaders of the Asian countries present breathed a sigh of relief. "Far Eastern Economic Review" said, "For the first time in the global economic crisis, China has demonstrated the demeanor of an economic power."

Soros, who is in full swing, is willing to stop.Because of China's financial controls on international capital, he decided to attack the Hong Kong dollar, which is most correlated with the yuan.In fact, in the past few years, mainstream European and American media have been worried about the future of Hong Kong's return.As early as June 26, 1995, the American "Fortune" magazine, which has always been quite friendly to China, even unexpectedly published a report entitled "Hong Kong Is Dead".Louis, a veteran report expert on Asian issues, predicted, “After the handover, the importance of English has weakened; An "accidental" effect was that it aroused the long-term vigilance of Hong Kong's ruling team. Secretary for Finance Donald Tsang mounted the report in a frame and hung it in his office.More than ten years later, he was elected chief executive and brought this frame into the chief executive's residence."This is what keeps me going," he told reporters.

In January 1998, bird flu broke out in Hong Kong. 18 people were infected and 6 of them died. The whole Hong Kong fell into panic. The SAR government culled 1.3 million chickens. The epidemic lasted for half a year.It was against such a turbulent background that Soros launched a sniper campaign against the Hong Kong dollar on August 5, and international speculators sold more than 20 billion Hong Kong dollars in one day.The Hong Kong Monetary Authority used its financial reserves to absorb the full amount and forcibly stabilized the foreign exchange market at the level of 1 US dollar to 7.75 Hong Kong dollars.The next day, speculators sold another 20 billion Hong Kong dollars, and the Monetary Authority gritted their teeth again and accepted all the orders.In the next 6 days, speculators continued to sell wildly, and the long-short battle was unprecedentedly fierce. The Hang Seng Index blew all the way to 6,600 points, almost 10,000 points lower than a year ago, and the total market value evaporated by 2 trillion Hong Kong dollars.

On August 13, with the support of Premier Zhu Rongji, the Hong Kong government brought huge foreign exchange funds into the stock market and futures market, directly confronted speculators, and announced very forcefully that it would "do whatever it takes to raise the stock index in August." 600 points".The Quantum Fund did not show weakness. Soros blatantly clamored in the "Wall Street Journal": "The Hong Kong government must fail."The global situation at that time seemed to be more favorable to Soros. Stock markets around the world were devastated. The Dow Jones stock index in the United States fell sharply again and again.The battle in Hong Kong has attracted worldwide attention. If the Hang Seng Index falls, the Hong Kong government’s tens of billions will be in vain. On the contrary, speculators will lose more than 2 billion US dollars.Tsang Yam-kuen, who was then the Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and was later elected as the second chief executive, recalled, "The night before I decided to intervene in the market, I dismissed all my colleagues and sat alone in the office, silently shedding tears. It is a difficult decision for the government to participate in the market. Since I have made this decision, I must stick to my principles and accept criticism. Our life is very difficult. But I do not believe that we Hong Kong citizens will lose."

On August 28, the long and short sides reached the decisive battle day.This day is the settlement day of the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index futures contract in August, and international speculators have a large number of futures orders that must be sold when they expire.On that day, speculators sold wildly, and the Hong Kong government took all the orders. The turmoil in the Hong Kong market was like a flat boat in the rough waves, and the daily trading volume hit a record high in history.At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the closing bell rang, the Hang Seng Index and the futures index sat firmly at 7829 points and 7851 points respectively, and the Soros Group suffered a complete defeat.Donald Tsang announced that night: Hong Kong government has won the battle against international speculators and defending Hong Kong stock market and Hong Kong dollar.During the two-week support operation, China invested HK$163.7 billion.Professor Zhang Wuchang commented in his usual tone: "There is no one that deals in derivatives with unlimited capital support. If so, you will definitely win, but no one dares to fight against you. The Chinese government is When the financial giants blocked the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate, they spoke out and supported it, and in the end those speculators were scared away."

In order to defend the RMB from depreciation, Zhu Rongji actually took on unprecedented risks and pressures.Affected by the financial turmoil, the export growth rate, which has always been good, has declined, domestic commodity inventories have soared, and consumer demand has severely sluggish. In June, the Yangtze River Basin suffered another once-in-a-century flood, which affected 29 provinces and cities, resulting in 4,150 deaths and a direct loss of 255.1 billion yuan.At that time, the global public opinion declared almost in unison: If the RMB does not depreciate, China's economy will struggle.However, Zhu Rongji proved the independence and uniqueness of the Chinese economy in his own way.

Under the circumstances at that time, the only way to reverse the downward trend of the economy and the current situation of overcooled consumption was to look inward and start domestic demand.At that time, the savings of the national residents had reached 5 trillion yuan. As long as this part of the consumption capacity was released, the economic recovery might be solved easily.Therefore, Zhu Rongji made a major decision-to promote real estate.In the past few years, in order to prevent inflation, he has been quite vigilant against possible speculation in the real estate market and has adopted a policy of restraining development. The only commodity to buy with money is the house. In January 1998, Wang Shi, an iconic figure in the real estate industry, suddenly received a notice telling him to go to Beijing from Shenzhen as soon as possible, and some leaders of the central government wanted to meet him.When he arrived in Beijing, he realized that the man was actually Premier Zhu Rongji.Wang Shi later recalled, "Premier Zhu asked me about the real estate market trends and opinions." Looking back, this is a very meaningful detail.

As early as last year, the State Council has begun to "loosen the gate" on real estate.In the beginning of spring, the State Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance canceled 48 "unreasonable charges" in the construction industry. On April 28, the People's Bank of China sent the "Trial Measures for the Administration of Personal Housing Guaranteed Loans" to commercial banks in the form of "urgent mail", announcing that they will be implemented from now on: the loan period can be up to 20 years, and the loan amount can be up to 70% of the house price. In July, the original 6% deed tax, 3% pawn deed tax and 6% gift deed tax were merged into 3%-5% deed tax.These measures have gradually warmed up the market.By July 1998, the State Council made a major decision that all party and government agencies stopped implementing the practice of distributing welfare housing in kind for more than 40 years, and promoted the monetization of housing distribution.The abolition of the welfare housing allocation policy has greatly expanded the space for housing marketization.Almost at the same time, the State Council issued a notice on further deepening the reform of the urban housing system "accelerating housing construction", which clearly requires "accelerating the establishment and improvement of a housing supply system mainly based on affordable housing." The People's Bank of China promulgated the "Personal Housing Loan The Management Measures stipulates that there are two repayment methods for housing loans: equal principal and interest and equal principal, and allows commercial banks to provide housing mortgage loan services. In order to express encouragement, the central bank also specially arranged a housing loan guideline with a scale of 100 billion yuan. plan.

The introduction of this series of supporting policies, especially the two major measures of allowing mortgage loans and abolishing welfare housing allocation, directly stimulated the recovery of the real estate industry. China began a real estate boom that lasted more than ten years, and countless wealth stories were deduced in this field. .Since the real estate industry has a wide range of correlations, it has a great impetus to resource industries such as steel and cement, and thus has indeed played a role in economic recovery.Zhang Jun, a professor at Fudan University, later commented, “This policy was a turning point in improving market demand after the Asian financial crisis, and its effect lasted for 10 years. Consumer credit stimulated household demand for housing, while large-scale infrastructure construction released continuous Demand for investment goods. A large number of enterprises began to enter the period of investment expansion after this. Due to the strong investment, the demand for energy and raw materials in the upstream basic sectors of the entire economy has maintained continuous growth, which provides a large number of state-owned enterprises located in the upstream. Provides a favorable market environment.” In 1998, the start-up effect of the big turning point in the policy on real estate consumption was so obvious. Last year, Pan Shiyi, one of the "Six Wantong Brothers", went solo. He bought the old Red Star Erguotou factory site at the East Third Ring Road in Beijing, and wanted to develop a commercial and residential building called Modern City.He creatively came up with a new real estate concept of SOHO, which means "small office, home office".In order to get a loan, he tried his best to find the president of a local branch of a large state-owned bank. While drinking, the president said to him: "We have a policy that stipulates that we cannot meet with private entrepreneurs. Our branch gave loans to private farmers in 1954. The money was used to buy donkeys, but do you know what happened? They didn’t pay back the money.” Pan Shiyi also understood the president’s attitude when he heard this, and his head was like a bucket.The real estate market is sluggish, and sales of SOHO Modern City have been sluggish since its launch. Pan Shiyi specially invited Deng Zhiren, who once founded the largest real estate agency company in Hong Kong and has moved to Beijing's real estate market for many years, to be the chief planner of the project.Deng Zhiren tried every possible means, and the advertisements and news of SOHO Modern City appeared in the newspapers every day, but the hearts of consumers just couldn't be warmed up.In November 1998, Deng Zhiren finally lost his patience. After a big fight with Pan Shiyi, he abandoned the "city" in despair.This month is the low season for real estate sales in Beijing. Apart from shouting slogans every day in the company, Pan Shiyi really can't think of any new tricks.At this moment, "Feng Shui" suddenly changed.Starting from November 20th, the sales of Modern City have soared. On the highest day, 17 units were sold, and the turnover was 30 million yuan.It is less than 20 days since Deng Zhiren left Modern City. The good days of Pan Shiyi and others just fell out of thin air. Among Zhu Rongji's policy promises, "to get the state-owned enterprises out of trouble within three years" is the most impossible task.In the same year, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Finance announced a desperate reality in a briefing: state-owned enterprises had to cover up their real predicament by falsifying their financial statements.The Ministry conducted spot checks on the annual accounting statements of 100 key state-owned enterprises from 1997 to 1998, and found that 81% of the enterprises had false assets and false profits.The spokesperson did not explain why this was the case, however, all were aware of why this was the case.However, to the surprise of all observers, Zhu Rongji fulfilled his promise as scheduled. The method he used was "reform, reorganization, transformation and strengthening management", and the strategy he implemented was to resolutely "retire the country and advance the people". . The best example of Zhu Rongji's determination to "retire from the country" occurred in China's film industry. Just 5 days after delivering the "minefield" speech, Zhu Rongji signed a seemingly crazy plan. The Chinese government agreed to the global film industry leader Kodak's acquisition of China's film industry industry-wide.According to the agreement, all seven companies in China's film industry will establish joint ventures with Kodak. Kodak promises to invest 1 billion US dollars and bring world-class photosensitive technology to China. This agreement that has caused a sensation in the international business community is called the "98 Agreement." ". Kodak's plan was born in 1994.In the autumn of that year, Pei Xuede, the newly appointed president of Kodak, asked to see Zhu Rongji in Hangzhou and raised this motion for the first time.At that time, Kodak was falling into an unprecedented disaster. This long-established company that has survived for a century due to the invention of photosensitive emulsion was strongly impacted by Japan's Fuji.In the European and American markets, Kodak was losing ground and was burdened with a huge debt of more than 10 billion US dollars.When Pei Xuede took office, his new colleague told a black humor that was circulating in Kodak: What is the difference between Kodak and Titanic?The answer is: there was a symphony during the sinking of the Titanic.In the Chinese market, Kodak is also a laggard. Fuji occupies more than 70% of the market share. If through conventional market competition, Kodak has little chance of winning. Therefore, when Pei Xuede suddenly proposed to the Chinese party that "the whole industry should acquire Chinese film companies" on the bank of the beautiful West Lake, everyone present felt that this was absurd. This was a topic that had not been discussed beforehand. It's the first time the followers have heard of it.However, Zhu Rongji was the only one who didn't think it was whimsical, because, in his heart, he was planning another game of chess. If Kodak's current situation is in dire straits, then China's film industry is desperate.Like household appliances, beverages and other industries, the transformation of China's film industry after 1978 also started with the introduction of complete sets of equipment.Since the early 1980s, local governments have been scrambling to set up projects, and successively introduced complete sets of color film production lines from Kodak, Fuji and Agfa of Germany. The cost of the project is as high as 4 billion yuan.In just 10 years, China built seven film factories, becoming the country with the most film companies in the world.All the ills of the state-owned enterprises are concentratedly exposed in the film industry: huge duplication of investment, lack of ability to digest technology, weak market competition, rigid mechanism and chaotic management.Around 1993, all domestic film companies were at a loss, and the industry's total debt exceeded 10 billion yuan.Faced with such a situation, even Zhu Ji, a master of chaos, was a little helpless.It was at such a moment that Pei Xuede, who was also in a predicament, pointed out a bright path. Pei Xuede's proposal is attractive: "In the process of the Chinese government's reform of state-owned enterprises, Kodak will bring three things, one is technology, the other is world-class management, and the other is an investment of at least US$1 billion." At the same time, Pei Xuede's request is exclusive: "We ask that no foreign competitors be allowed to enter China, because we want to reorganize existing old enterprises, while they can build new factories from scratch." Kodak's idea perfectly matched the reality that the Chinese government was incapable of reforming state-owned enterprises, which made Zhu Rongji determined to take a risk in the first place.He immediately agreed to Pei Xuede's motion and promised to personally supervise the matter. Kodak's plan faced two major obstacles from the very beginning: one was the rebound of domestic film companies, and the other was the resistance of Japan's Fuji. It is an unheard of practice in the history of Chinese enterprises to entrust all of an important industry to a multinational company. Not to mention that each company has already had different partners with intertwined interests and conflicts in the market. In fact, this initiative In itself, it means the complete annihilation of the national film industry. Around 1996, domestic domestic enterprises boomed, and voices for revitalizing national industries continued to be heard, and Kodak's plan was temporarily stranded. In March 1997, the Chinese side put forward a new plan, only taking out the Fuda and Gongyuan factories with the largest debts as joint ventures with Kodak, and determined to "concentrate on supporting the development of Hebei Lucky to make it competitive." During this process, Zhu Rongji has always been a supporter of industry-wide mergers and acquisitions, and he was even called a "traitor" because of this.During an inspection, he said, “Some people say that the decrease in the proportion of state ownership and the increase in the proportion of private ownership will change socialism... The key lies in the lifeline of the economy. Foreign capital, what does it matter?" His so-called "several films" were naturally aimed at the acquisition of Kodak. The boycott from the market occupant Fuji in Japan is even more conceivable. Kodak's motion obviously implies an industry monopoly. Once it is finalized, it will undoubtedly mean Fuji's exit from the Chinese market.Surprisingly, however, it has found no sympathizers in China.The reason is because of years of arrogance.At that time, Shantou Gongyuan Factory imported equipment from Fuji with a huge investment of 4 billion yuan. Around 1993, Gongyuan had a business crisis. Zhu Senlin, then Governor of Guangdong Province, flew to Japan with the management of Gongyuan Factory, hoping to get help.But their request to meet with the leadership of Fuji was turned down. The Japanese believed that the AD crisis was a matter for the Chinese and had nothing to do with them. Zhu Senlin and his party waited in Tokyo for several days, but returned empty-handed.This "rejection incident" quickly spread in the Chinese political and business circles, making many people gnash their teeth.Therefore, when Fuji tried to resist the Kodak case, it was difficult to find powerful people who were willing to stand up for it.Fuji's subsequent performance in China can be described as a drastic drop, and its market share in China has been eroded year by year. In 2002, "China Business Daily" disclosed that Fuji was involved in large-scale film smuggling, a considerable part of which was even related to Lai Changxing, the main culprit of the "Yuanhua Extraordinary Smuggling Case" in Xiamen.Fuji responded in silence.In November of the same year, the State Economic and Trade Commission issued a document affirming that Zhuhai Zhenke Photosensitive Material Production Co., Ltd., which is a shareholder of Fuji, "had not been approved and filed", and was ordered to stop production.So far, Fuji's production and sales channels in China have been contained. On March 23, 1998, Pei Xuede announced at the Kodak headquarters in Rochester that Kodak's agreement to acquire the entire film industry in China for US$1 billion was finalized, and Kodak's stock on Wall Street rose sharply in response.With the full support of Zhu Ji, Beijing specially set up a central coordination group consisting of "two committees and three ministries" - the State Planning Commission, the State Economic and Trade Commission, the Ministry of Chemical Industry, the Ministry of Light Industry, and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. Vice Premier Wu Bangguo served as the coordination group The team leader, Li Rongrong, deputy director of the State Economic and Trade Commission, coordinated in detail. Over the next five years, Kodak underwent major surgery on its pocket business.It has successively invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the transformation of Gongyuan, Fuda and Wuxi Alme three factories, making them Kodak's global manufacturing base. After shutting down and transferring, the employees of the three factories received corresponding resettlement fees according to their length of service. It was a popular practice at that time to calculate the dismissal compensation for employees based on their length of service. Generally, the compensation received by each year of service ranged from 500 yuan to 2,000 yuan. , according to the investigation of Yuan Weidong, the author of the book "Leaping Over - Kodak in China", the highest resettlement fee received by more than 1,000 Shanghai photosensitive factory workers was 70,000 yuan. In Zhu Rongji's view, Kodak's performance satisfied him because it solved the two major problems in the transformation of state-owned enterprises, namely "where does the money come from and where does the people go".Especially the latter. On April 13, 1999, during Zhu Rongji’s visit to the United States, he said at the dinner of the US-China Business Council in New York, “I can tell you a story, that is, I met Pei Xuede of Kodak Company and asked his Kodak Company to come to China for cooperation. I was once called a traitor when I was in China. However, after two years of Kodak’s massive investment in China, it has promoted the development of China’s film industry. Therefore, the person who called me a traitor has told me recently that he was wrong before... ...I think this kind of concession is beneficial to both China and the United States." In 2002, Li Rongrong, then director of the State Economic and Trade Commission, said in an interview with the US "Business Weekly", "I have two successful cases. One is Kodak The company reorganized our imaging industry, which is a win-win case. The second example is the comprehensive cooperation between Nissan and Dongfeng Motor. The biggest inspiration from the reorganization is that we are determined to promote such a reorganization.” The "98 Agreement" between the Chinese government and Kodak was completed in 2003. In October, Kodak signed a contract with Hebei Lucky Company, which has always been the most resistant to mergers and acquisitions, and exchanged 100 million US dollars in cash, equipment and technology for 20% of Lucky's shares.So far, all seven companies in China's film industry have entered into joint ventures with Kodak.In the global market, the "yellow giant", which was beaten dizzily by Fuji, finally regained its dignity in China.Around 2005, one-sixth of Kodak's annual global procurement of US$6 billion came from China, and more than 95% of Kodak's digital cameras were produced in China.Kodak also transformed 2,000 of the more than 9,200 color printing stores across the country into digital imaging stores, creating an extremely large digital color printing network, and turning the Chinese market into Kodak's second largest market in the world. In the 30-year history of Chinese enterprises, this is the only case in which a multinational company conducts an industry-wide acquisition of an important industry.In 1998, Zhu Rongji signed a cooperation agreement with Kodak in the face of the sluggish state-owned enterprise reform. If the reform of Chinese companies is divided according to the theme, it can be divided into two from 1998. The previous theme was the transformation of the operating mechanism, and then the reorganization and clarity of property rights. The difference is that although the former has little effect, it is still , the policy design is indeed very clear, while the latter reform, the effect is remarkable, but the policy definition is always unclear. The "National Retirement and Democracy Progress" movement began to be tested in 1997, promoted on a large scale in 1998, and came to an end in 2003. It means that the reform movement of state-owned enterprises with the theme of mechanism transformation and decentralization and invigoration has quietly ended for 20 years. China The ownership structure of enterprises has been changed, which will also profoundly affect the Chinese economy for a long time in the future. In 2002, a "Investigation Report on Private Enterprises in China" showed that in the past four years, 25.7% of the surveyed private enterprises were "transformed" from the state-owned or collective.Among these enterprises, the eastern region accounted for the largest proportion, accounting for 45.6%; before the "restructuring", 25.3% were state-owned enterprises, and 74.7% were township enterprises; 60.6% of the business owners were the heads of the original enterprises ; Among the private entrepreneurs produced through the restructuring of public-owned enterprises, the proportion of members of the Communist Party of China is as high as 50.66%. In 2003, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission revealed that in actual operation, the "disposal" of state-owned assets in most places was largely reflected in the complete withdrawal, and all local state-owned assets were disposed of by means of full transfer. From 1998 to 2003 , the number of state-owned and state-holding enterprises decreased from 238,000 to 150,000, a decrease of 40%. From the very beginning, the five-year "retirement of the country and the advancement of the people" showed the characteristics of a pan-movement and a lack of legal supervision. As in the past many years, "retirement of the country and advancement of the people" is regarded as a standard action in favor of reform, and officials from all over the country have expressed their support.In the newspapers and periodicals in early 1998, officials' high-profile statements can be seen everywhere.Shu Shengyou, governor of Jiangsu Province, put forward that "do not seek the pure, but seek the best, and don't restrict yourself by sticking to the issue of proportion".Jiang Zhuping, Governor of Hubei Province, said, "We must completely abandon the traditional concept that the joint-stock system is associated with private ownership, and eliminate the doubt that the sale of state-owned assets will lead to the loss of state-owned assets." Hui Liangyu, Governor of Anhui Province, even urged, "Now It is early reform and early initiative, late reform will be passive, and there will be no way out if there is no reform.” Fengyang County, Anhui, which was the first to implement the rural land contract responsibility system, even sold hundreds of collective enterprises to private individuals within a year. The secretary of the county party committee said that in the past we dared to "contract" and broke the "one large and two public" in the countryside. Now we dare to "sell" and break the "one large and two public" in the towns. Fengyang will no longer engage in enterprises with single public ownership. up.The speed and proportion of state-owned enterprises have become an indicator of the performance evaluation of the reform, and many cities will "package and sell" hundreds of enterprises together in order to speed up.The most sensational news event occurred in February 2003, when the Xi'an Municipal Government announced a package sale of 60 billion yuan of state-owned assets. As the biggest strategic adjustment in the reform of state-owned enterprises, the "retirement of the country and the advancement of the people" has never formed a national legal reform plan. This is the most strange part of this reform.All localities still follow the idea of ​​"crossing the river by feeling the stones", and the Eight Immortals cross the sea, each showing their magical powers, so there have been dozens of methods for quantitative transfer of property rights, the most important of which include: Management MBO - Entrepreneurs are allowed to buy the shares of the enterprises they manage, some of them fully funded the purchase, and some donate part of the dry shares. Curve MBO - the management invests in the establishment of a new company, and then enters into various operating or capital reorganization relationships with the original company, and finally acquires equity in the curve.Among such cases, the most famous one is the restructuring of Guangdong Midea Group.This is a township collective ownership enterprise founded in 1968. In 1992, it was reorganized into a joint-stock company.Midea's privatization started in 1999. The initial approach was to convert a certain percentage of its net assets into shares and distribute them to operators on the basis of quantifying its net assets. In December 2000, Midea Holdings signed an agreement with a company called Meituo Investment. The former transferred 72,430,331 legal person shares to the latter at a price of 3.00 yuan per share (at that time, Yuemei’s net assets per share were 4.07 yuan). The acquisition amount is 217 million yuan.After the transfer, Meito Investment became the largest shareholder of Yuemei, and this company is controlled by the senior management of Midea Group, of which Chairman He Xiangjian owns 25% of the shares. Employee shareholding—Employee shareholding associations are established to quantify the assets of the company in the form of full shareholding, in which the management obtains the largest proportion of shares.Shenzhen, which has always been famous for its courage to reform, issued a special document requiring state-owned enterprises in the city to fully implement the "employee stock ownership system." Quantification of capital introduction - through the introduction of foreign capital or listing, reorganize the assets of the enterprise, and cut out a piece to be held by the management. Value-added quantification——Based on the existing net assets, quantify the future value-added part to individuals, and gradually increase the proportion of private shares.The model of this program is the restructuring of TCL. In April 1997, Huizhou's TCL Group took the lead in conducting a pilot operation of state-owned assets authorization, and the Huizhou Municipal Government signed a five-year decentralized operation agreement with Li Dongsheng's team.According to the agreement, TCL's assets of 300 million yuan by 1996 were all owned by the Huizhou Municipal Government, and the annual return on net assets thereafter should not be lower than 10%; 15%; increase by 25% - 40%, management can get 30% of it; increase by more than 40%, management can get 45% of it.This plan is considered a "perfect strategy", which not only ensures the preservation and appreciation of the stock of state-owned assets, but also creates space for the management's shareholding. The following changes in TCL’s property rights are as follows: In 1998, Li Dongsheng’s team completed the authorized business objectives, and through capital increase, the management and labor unions obtained 8.82% of the shares; by 2000, the share capital structure was 62.59% state-owned shares, and 37.41% for management and labor unions ; In 2002, Li Dongsheng reduced the state-owned shares to 40.97% by introducing strategic investors. So far, TCL Group has changed from a state-owned company absolutely controlled by the local government to a company with a multi-shareholding structure; in January 2004, TCL Group went public , Li Dongsheng held 5.59% of the shares, which was equivalent to a market value of 1.2 billion yuan at the time. Bankruptcy Restructuring - Putting the business into bankruptcy and then selling it to an individual.Xin Wang, a scholar who has been working in southern Jiangsu for many years, described that during the climax period, the desktops of city and county leaders were full of corporate bankruptcy reports, and after the approval of "please go bankrupt according to law", it was transferred to the court, and the court did not even have time Declare bankruptcy. There is no unified legal basis for these methods, and there is no necessary supervision system, so there is a dusty situation.A bank accountant named Zhang Dadian once summed up the "increase and decrease methods" invented by operators in various places in the process of restructuring. "Increase" means to increase liabilities. If the assets of the enterprise remain unchanged and the total amount of liabilities increases, the repayment rate of the original liabilities will decrease.There are four specific methods.Temporarily false.That is to say, before the enterprise is restructured, either in the name of owed payment or in the name of non-payment, it falsely sets up unpaid items; or in the name of payable, it falsely sets up payables to increase liabilities.Before a certain company went bankrupt, its assets were appraised at 6.4 million yuan, but its debts were as high as more than 60 million yuan, of which more than 20 million yuan was a fictitious amount due to the township agriculture and industry general company and the township finance office.The second is excessive increase.That is, before the restructuring, the enterprise either underpays or fails to report, or pays and pays unpaid, to increase the payable and payable unpaid items; or to overreport, overestimate bankruptcy liquidation and other expenses to increase expenditure.The third is to mention less.That is to say, in the accrued expenses of the enterprise, the underaccrual of bank loan interest and compound interest will directly cause the interest of bank receivables to be suspended and evaded.The fourth is wide evaluation.That is to say, when the enterprise restructures, when evaluating its liabilities, even if it has been confirmed that it does not need to be paid or does not need to be handed over, the original amount will be assessed or retained.Wide assessment of liabilities and underestimation of assets are relatively common means. "Reduction" means trying every means to reduce assets, and there are four specific methods.to temporarily transfer.That is, before the restructuring, the enterprise transfers its assets in the name of "investment", "debt repayment", etc., or divides its effective assets to a separate enterprise in the form of division, that is, the so-called "stripping of assets" means to avoid debts .The second is concealment.That is, before the restructuring or in the process of asset inventory evaluation, the enterprise either uses operating losses or natural losses as the name, sells assets at low prices, or uses means of concealing real objects to expand asset losses and conceal assets with false losses.The third is to hollow out.That is to say, before or during the restructuring, the enterprise writes off its receivables in one lump sum due to "help", "gift", or old debts, or it is financing but prefers to invest and lose money, etc. assets.Four is underestimated.That is to say, when an enterprise restructures and evaluates its assets, it intentionally underestimates its real assets and receivables on the grounds that it is difficult to realize them, or that they cannot be collected in full. No one has counted how many state-owned and collective enterprises have adopted these "increase and decrease methods" in the process of restructuring. This is a mystery that will never be answered.In a sense, the large-scale release of state-owned assets has indeed become a production line that produces multi-millionaires and even billionaires. A considerable number of rich people who appeared on various wealth lists later are the biggest beneficiaries of this reform.Therefore, it is called "the last feast". In a wealth game with no bottom line and boundaries, winners and losers are all in the blink of an eye.Among them, there are proud people who celebrate each other, and naturally there are also sad losers. This summer, "Beverage King" Li Jingwei moved his office from Sanshui to the newly built Guangzhou Jianlibao Building.Sitting in the spacious and luxurious office on the 38th floor, he can overlook the panoramic view of Guangzhou and the year-round green Yuexiu Park.At this time, the company's situation was very gratifying, and it achieved sales of 5 billion yuan last year.Jianlibao was selected into the first batch of "China Famous Trademarks" announced by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. In the industry rankings published by the China Beverage Association, Jianlibao ranked first in terms of output, total output value, sales revenue and taxation. It was also selected by the media as the One of the "Top Ten Famous Brands in the Minds of the Chinese Public in the 1990s".However, at such a moment, Li Jingwei's mood couldn't get better. Since 1994, the tenth year of his business, Li Jingwei has been considering the ownership of Jianlibao's property rights.In Sanshui, he enjoyed the highest "political treatment".In many local ceremonies, the secretary of the county party committee and the county magistrate sit next to him in the middle, and then it is the turn of other government officials.However, this kind of unparalleled respect and love still cannot untie the knot of property rights in his heart. In 1997, the public opinion of "retreating from the state and advancing from the people" became increasingly popular, state-owned capital would gradually withdraw from competitive fields, and operators were allowed to purchase enterprise assets in various ways.In Li Jingwei's view, the beverage industry is undoubtedly a 100% competitive field, and the clarification of Jianlibao's property rights is completely in line with the central policy.Li Jingwei's plan is to realize equity incentives through stock listing.在李经纬的精心策划下，健力宝谋求在香港联交所上市。在此案中，包括了经营层的股权分配。然而，出乎他意料的是，就在上市方案行将通过的时候，三水政府以李经纬团队“没有香港暂居证，因而不得购买H股原始股票”为理由，拒绝批准这个方案。 在三水官员看来，健力宝的发展固然有李经纬的创始之功，但是与政府多年来的全力扶持也是分不开的，凭什么给你个人呢？况且，健力宝每年上缴的利税是三水财政的支柱，一旦私有化，地方建设的“钱袋子”就不见了。还有一个理由，李经纬哪来那么多钱买健力宝的股份，会不会有用公司的钱买公司股份的嫌疑？ 政府的态度让李经纬极度失望，他一怒之下放弃上市，然后把健力宝总部搬到了广州。从此，矛盾浮出水面。在政府看来，总部迁址很可能就意味着税收的流失。从1998年开始，三水政府加大了对健力宝资金的掌控，集团每开发一种新产品都必须通过政府审批，经过政府的财政预算，然后划拨经费。The insider explained that this is because “Sanshui is very wary of Li Jingwei’s transfer of assets in the name of developing new products, so almost every new investment promotion project has to be personally approved by the government. Find a partner." 1999年，三水政府大换届，一些与李经纬有交情的老官员全数退休或换岗，一层因历史渊源而形成的温情脉脉的薄纱也最终淡去，他的处境日益艰险。便在这一时刻，李经纬提出了第二套改制方案，由管理层自筹资金买下政府所持的股份，李经纬开出的价格是4.5亿元，将在3年内分期付清。三水政府断然拒绝，理由据称是“风险很大，有用健力宝资金买健力宝之嫌”。李经纬还不甘心，他接着聘请深圳一家咨询公司又设计出第三套方案，李经纬团队持股75%，三水政府再给李经纬个人5%的股权奖励。这个方案也遭到政府方面的否决，理由依然是“担心经营层的钱来历不明”。 在这样的拉锯中，政府与管理层的关系近乎破裂，而企业效益也开始急速下滑。健力宝的经营业绩自1997年创造了54亿元的骄人纪录后，每年以锐减5亿-8亿元的幅度降低，上缴政府的利税也从1亿元降到两三千万元左右。 就这样，一家蒸蒸日上的企业因政府与经营者的产权博弈而变得前途无比莫测。 如果说，李经纬在产权清晰化的话语权争夺上招招被动的话，那么，华南的另一位明星企业家则显得更无能为力。 1998年12月，在没有任何预兆的情况下，科龙集团突然发布公告，潘宁辞去公司总裁职务。这时候的科龙正处在一个迅猛扩张的关键时刻，上年，科龙实现营业收入34亿元，利润6.6亿元，被香港《亚洲货币》杂志评为中国最佳管理公司和中国最佳投资者关系公司。潘宁辞职的两个月前，科龙还刚刚收购了广东另一家陷入困境的家电企业华宝空调。根据很多当事人的回忆，潘宁对自己的“辞职”并无思想准备。在整个1998年，他一直在全国各地考察，他想收购成都一家军工厂的车间，将之改建成冰箱生产线，还到河北等省份洽谈建设北方生产基地的事宜。据这段时间与潘宁有数面之缘的北京大学教授周其仁观察，“潘宁下岗，其实他对此没有做好准备，在过去的一年多里，他一直四处奔波。” 后来发生的一连串惊人的事实表明，潘宁辞职，意味着地方政府对他的产权改革思路的坚决否定。在过去几年里，潘宁一直试图说服政府把股权释放给管理层，他冒险新创科龙品牌也是其中的一个战略性步骤。1997年以来，市场竞争十分激烈的家电产业成为国有资产退出的领域，而惠州的TCL已经进行了产权改革试验，潘宁对改制的迫切性也越来越强烈。可是，他的突然辞职让科龙集团的产权改制走上了一条坎坷的道路。 辛苦创业14年、被没有任何理由宣布“辞职”，潘宁几乎没有做任何“反抗”或解释，他迅速做出了移民加拿大的决定，从此不问科龙事。为表示自己的彻底隐退，他与科龙约法三章：“不保留办公室，不拿科龙一分钱退休金，不要科龙一股股份”。他对媒体记者发表的最后一段讲话时，“现在退下来，我觉得非常荣幸。因为好多知名的企业家，有的升了官，有的没有后继力，还有的犯了错误，极个别的上了刑场。像我这样干到65岁的企业家，屈指可数。我光荣退休，确实好荣幸。”他对外宣称有六个“退休计划”：学打高尔夫，学摄影，学开车，学太极拳，读点近代史，陪太太外游。一位科龙旧部曾纪录了一个细节：老潘临别科龙时，曾“口占一绝”留赠部下做纪念：“服务乡企数十年，纵横家电愤争先。闯破禁区成骏业，寄予同仁掌霸鞭。”有人指出，诗中的“愤争先”一句有点别扭，是不是“奋争先”或“纷争先”的笔误，潘宁肃然地说，就是这个“愤”，发愤图强的愤，愤怒的愤。 因产权变革而形成的政商博弈，让健力宝与科龙陷入了巨大的危机漩涡之中。在未来的几年内，围绕着这两家曾经创造过无数辉煌的企业将展开一场更为激烈的争夺战，最终，企业在多方利益群体的绞杀中奄奄一息。 1998年的中国企业界四处泛滥着悲喜难辨的亢奋。 从中央决策层到思想界、企业家，每个人都感受到改革向深度推进的艰巨，同时，又对这场变革将把这个国家和自己的命运带向何方有着莫名的亢奋与迷茫。在未来的几年里，人们日渐从“地雷阵”和“万丈深渊”的说法中咀嚼出更多、更复杂的意味来。也是在这一年，中国最大的家电企业海尔集团的年营业额接近200亿元，当记者问张瑞敏此刻的心情时，这位日渐深居简出的企业家说，“我现在的心里，每天还是八个字——战战兢兢，如履薄冰。”