Zheng Yonggang: The Investment Logic From Industry To Finance

Zheng Yonggang, 57 years old this year, is no longer the famous industrialist "wearing" Shanshan suits, but more like an active "investor". From the establishment of Shanshan Suit in 1989, Zheng Yonggang went from the clothing industry to lithium battery materials to the acquisition of rare earth minerals to enter the upstream industry. In recent years, he has made a lot of financial investments, not only in banking and insurance, but also in futures, equity investment, venture capital and other businesses through a number of private funds and venture capital companies.

He likes to do things that no one else has done before. He "creates things out of nothing and opens up new roads". It seems that he wants to try new industries that conform to the national strategy in advance. So, how did Zheng Yonggang complete the leap from industry to finance, and what was his investment logic?

　　 Reporter: Shanshan Group is a clothing The enterprise that started has many brands. Now Shanshan has a wide range of business. What is the current business structure and which sectors are focused on?

Zheng Yonggang: In the past, Shanshan was a clothing company and the first listed company in the industry. Since 1999, it has started to set foot in lithium battery materials. At present, it should be the world's largest comprehensive industry company of lithium battery cathode materials and cathode materials; In addition, the Group also involves commercial real estate, but the largest segment is financial investment, such as banking and insurance. At present, Shanshan is an enterprise integrating industrial capital and financial capital. There are three actual listed companies, and the business segments of the three shareholders are relatively comprehensive.

　　 Reporter: In addition to making lithium battery materials, Shanshan Group also has an electric vehicle research institute. What kind of layout will it have in the whole industry chain of new energy vehicles in the future? Will it get involved in the whole vehicle business?

　　 Zheng Yonggang : From the general trend, after the Internet era, the next may be the era of environmental energy. We have set foot in new energy assets very early, and will be able to connect up and down in the future Industrial chain The core of the Automotive Research Institute is to manufacture vehicles, especially new energy vehicles, including service research for new energy vehicles. Now it has started to have research and development institutions in Israel and the United States.

Now our new energy layout is just beginning, which is specifically done by listed companies. Recently, we began to do sample vehicles, including the launch of new energy vehicles.

　　 Reporter: Now you not only have shares in many banks, but also have a lot of involvement in insurance, futures and other fields. Do you have any plans for listing insurance assets, and how to achieve it?

Zheng Yonggang: In the past, finance was monopolized by the state. Since the opening up in the past two years, private enterprises have also begun to set foot in this field. Shanshan Group has entered this field earlier. Now it is mainly to consider making insurance companies into scale. In the future, it will consider listing or backdoor listing. This is inevitable, because the combination with capital is the future trend of insurance companies. However, the listing will not be considered in the past two years. The top priority is to expand the scale first and become an innovative insurance company.

How to become an innovative insurance company? In my opinion, most of the enterprises are now engaged in retail insurance, which has formed a very fast scale, but the most important thing is to serve these industries through product innovation, such as people's future pension industry. Because it is far from enough to rely on national pension insurance alone, commercial pension insurance will eventually be the dominant.

　　 Reporter: What is the orientation and plan of Shanshan Group for the original clothing industry?

Zheng Yonggang: For the entire Shanshan Group, the clothing sector is still profitable, but the proportion is not very large, about 20%. Now there are more than 20 brands, some of which are joint venture brands. The scale of Shanshan brand is the largest.

Shanshan was a pure clothing company at the earliest. The clothing sector will continue to innovate and improve its brand. Chinese brands are always unable to come, because the popular brands are Chinese, and the real brands are mainly French and Italian. If China wants to go out, it needs to improve its design, brand cultural concepts, and strive to be among the world's brands.

From the perspective of actual controllers, clothing brands should not only maintain development, but also improve, because clothing is a fashion industry, not a sunset industry. As long as we keep keeping up with the world trend with our brand values and design concepts, we still have something to do.

　　 Reporter: Shanshan entered into other unfamiliar fields from clothing. How do you consider the asset industry that she later set foot in? What can we learn from the transformation of other enterprises?

Zheng Yonggang: The state proposes an industrial upgrading and transformation, and we usually start three to five years in advance.

We realized that new energy is an industry for future development, so we discussed it and finally got involved in lithium battery materials. After our headquarters arrive in Shanghai, considering that Shanghai will definitely be an international financial center in the future, we must do financial work instead of opening factories in Shanghai.

As the boss, we try not to stay in Shanghai, but to travel around the world. We study the trends of the macro economy and make judgments based on these trends.

Now the country has entered a period of transformation and upgrading. At the macro level, you need to study whether the industry you are doing now conforms to the national development strategy; On the micro level, those involving their own technologies, brand markets and consumers should be clear about their own positioning. Even the same products can be upgraded through technology; If the national strategy is regarded as an industry that has been eliminated, we should not do it again, and it is likely to have no results.

Transforming entrepreneurs are not omnipotent. In manufacturing, they may succeed through hard work and wisdom, but they cannot cross borders in the same way. The same is true of Shanshan's successful transformation. When it was making lithium battery materials, there was a carbon research institute and the only one in China. I grafted with this institute. They had an 863 project. I industrialized this project, invested in it, and they did it. If clothing makers blindly make lithium batteries, the probability of success is almost zero. The insurance business is similar. We invite the best professional insurer as CEO and use a professional team to operate. If I do it myself, I will probably fail.

　　 Reporter: Now you are more focused on investment, and you are gradually stepping back from the background for real enterprises. Would you consider letting your son take over?

Zheng Yonggang.

Most of the "Generation Creation" have gone through a very hard process and are very tough to seize the opportunity of the times; The second generation is different. It may succeed. According to this rule, all rich families can succeed, but the probability of success is very small; In addition, it depends on children's preferences. No one stipulates that children must inherit what their parents do.

The management of enterprises still needs a professional elite team. "You can enjoy the wealth of your father's generation as a shareholder, but you don't have to operate. Equity and management rights need to be separated. If the next generation does not operate but only as a shareholder, it is more conducive to the continuation of wealth to hire professional people to do it.".