Chapter 497 Today's "Dress-up Play" +1
Regarding Evergrande's financial situation, people have actually been questioning it for a long time.
Especially since the beginning of 2020, when the real estate industry was temporarily suspended due to the flu, these doubts have become even more rampant.
Many netizens have revealed a series of Evergrande operations online, such as Evergrande's "National Partnership" promotion during the flu, 30% off house sales, large-scale layoffs and salary cuts, and requiring employees to "712" (work seven days a week, 12 hours a day)...
These operations ultimately point to the same thing. Evergrande's cash flow is not very healthy. In the absence of a way to "increase revenue", it has to use these means to "cut costs."
Or to put it more bluntly, Evergrande has no money.
Having said that, most of the remarks are just rumors and gossip. Evergrande's annual financial report rating is excellent, and even half of its own people like Hengten Network can't tell the real situation.
However, although it is not clear, compared to the outside world, Hengten can finally perceive some deeper changes.
What Zhou Cheng just said about "increasing the dividend ratio for shareholders" seems to be a normal operational proposal, but if you look deeper, no matter which reason is actually far-fetched.
Although Meng Bai is not a business genius and can see the big picture from the small details, he is still an "old player" in the capital circle. More importantly, he has experienced the collapse of another giant up close and has experience in this kind of thing.
Today's Evergrande, in many aspects, is exactly the same as Leshi.com back then.
Although it is hard to say whether this speculation is right or wrong, Meng Bai still feels that he should be prepared in advance.
"Fortunately, there are not too many specific business or financial involvements between us and Evergrande, otherwise we would not be able to sleep now." Chen Zhixi said with a smile.
Hengten Network's largest shareholder is Evergrande, but it is independently operated, and the two are in a cooperative relationship. At the same time, because of the unique light asset nature of the film and television industry, there is no such thing as arrears. At most, there are some residual box office settlements with Evergrande Cinema.
To be honest, since the merger and reorganization of the two parties, Hengten has basically been taking advantage of Evergrande to grow itself. This is mainly due to the fact that Ruyi insisted on controlling the operation of the film and television industry when the merger took place.
Of course, Evergrande is not stupid. They are mainly aiming to increase the stock price to drive the data of its entertainment sector, thereby enhancing the capital market's confidence in the investment value of the headquarters group.
Meng Bai tapped the table with his fingers. He was in a hurry to find Chen Zhixi just now and didn't have time to think carefully. Now that he has calmed down, he gradually has some new ideas.
If Evergrande's financial situation is really in trouble, it may be a good thing for Hengten Network, or more accurately for these "original Ruyi" shareholders.
As we all know, Tencent has always held the investment industry without interfering. So as long as Meng Bai and his team can take over a larger part of the shares, they can complete the "emptying the cage and replacing the bird" and reversely control Hengten Network.
If you want to eat up the shares in Evergrande's hands, funds are definitely indispensable. Meng Bai has Qiming Venture Partners, so there is no need to worry about this part.
The only question at present is whether Evergrande will burst into thunder?
Meng Bai and Chen Zhixi had similar ideas about this, and both felt that it would take some time.
However, it turned out that their expectations for Evergrande were too optimistic.
January 1, 2021, New Year's Day.
Just when everyone was welcoming the New Year, an article about Evergrande's "letter of help" to the Guangdong Provincial Government suddenly broke out on the Internet.
This is a 13-page document titled "Report on Evergrande's Request for Support for Major Asset Sufficient Projects". The words are sincere, the data is detailed, and the theme is only one, that is, I hope that the Guangdong Provincial Government can support the reorganization of "Evergrande Real Estate and Shenzhen Real Estate A" to avoid the break of Evergrande's capital chain.
When many netizens saw this news, the first emotion was confusion.
Evergrande is really out of money? Why ask for help from Guangdong Province? What is "Shenfang A"?
This involves some historical events of Evergrande in the past.
As early as 2016, Evergrande took advantage of Baoneng and Vanke's struggle for control and absorbed a large number of Vanke shares through the secondary market. These shares were later transferred to the Metro Group under the name of Yuesheng State-owned Assets at a low price.
This money is not lost in vain, and Boss Xu also has his own demands. Evergrande wanted to return to the A-share market from the Hong Kong stock market, so it reached an agreement on mergers and acquisitions and restructuring with Shenzhen Real Estate A under the name of Guangdong Provincial State-owned Assets, preparing to "go public through a backdoor listing".
At the same time, in order to optimize the structure and reduce debt, Evergrande also introduced 27 investment institutions in three rounds, totaling 130 billion strategic financing.
In return, the reorganized Evergrande needs to go public within four years, otherwise, in addition to repurchasing shares, it will have to pay an additional 13.7 billion in dividend interest.
At the beginning, the cooperation was still very smooth. In order to show its sincerity, Evergrande even moved its headquarters from Yangcheng to Shenzhen. However, the restructuring plan has been postponed for various reasons, and there is still no news until now, when the four-year deadline is approaching.
The more fatal blow came last month, when the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the "three red lines" on debt to the real estate industry, accurately cutting into Evergrande's vital points.
Backdoor listing is nowhere in sight, the main business is declining year by year, the debt policy has detonated a minefield, and there is also a foreign debt of more than 140 billion yuan...
Although Evergrande issued a rumor-refuting announcement the next day, stating that the so-called "help letter" was completely false, except for Evergrande's retail investors, basically no one believed it.
The detailed data in the letter, various contents and actual conditions can also match, and it is not something that outsiders can fabricate at all.
Real estate is different from industries such as film and television entertainment. It is really related to people's livelihood and economy. Evergrande is the top real estate company in China, involving a large number of residential houses. Once it explodes, the impact will be huge.
Therefore, during this period, whether online or offline, the public's topic is almost inseparable from Evergrande. Especially those buyers who bought Evergrande pre-sale houses, they privately cursed "Belt Xu" while praying every day that Boss Xu can hold on.
At the board of directors of Hengten Network, Ke Liming, as a representative of the original Confucian system, euphemistically asked Zhou Cheng about Evergrande's situation.
"Everyone, I am only in charge of Heng Teng now, and I don't know much about the situation of the group." Zhou Cheng said helplessly.
"I understand, we're just curious." Ke Liming laughed, then looked at Meng Bai implicitly and exchanged glances.
Zhou Cheng also looked at Meng Bai, not because he noticed the little movements of the two, but because he knew that although Ke Liming and Chen Zhixi seemed to be the original leaders of the Confucian Department, it was actually this President Meng who was in control of the overall situation behind the scenes.
He knew that Ke Liming's inquiry was definitely not as he said, just out of curiosity, and he must want to test something. Although he had some vague ideas in his mind, he was still unsure of the specific situation.
He hoped to see something from Meng Bai's face, but unfortunately, to his disappointment, until the end of the board meeting, the other party always had that calm smile, making it difficult to figure out what he was thinking. Sure
enough, those who can reach this position at such a young age are not simple characters, and they can be more patient than those who are 10 or 20 years older than them.
If Meng Bai knew Zhou Cheng's thoughts, he would definitely say helplessly that he was not patient at all, but purely because he had made preparations, so no matter how the subsequent developments were, there was a plan.
He had no doubts about the "help letter" that was widely circulated on the Internet, because the content on it was almost exactly the same as he expected.
So as early as a few days ago, he had asked Gu Fei to start reserving funds. As long as Evergrande is interested in selling Hengten's shares, he can take them at any time.
It may be a bit difficult to take them all, but there is Tencent. Strictly speaking, they are actually the second largest shareholder of Hengten. If Evergrande can give up its shares, they will also be interested.
Of course, this matter will definitely not be answered in three or five days. Since Evergrande is still issuing a rumor-refuting announcement, it means that they still want to struggle.
At present, it seems that the only turning point is to see whether the official will save Evergrande. This has nothing to do with the relationship between the two, but mainly depends on whether the consequences of Evergrande's thunderstorm can be accepted.
As the "help letter" said, although the income belongs to Evergrande, the debt is for all employees.
This involves more than 100 banks and financial institutions, more than 8,000 upstream and downstream enterprises, 140,000 Evergrande employees, more than 3 million jobs, and more than 600,000 commercial houses that have not yet been completed.
Whether it is coercion or pleading, in short, the official really cannot ignore the series of financial risks and livelihood impacts brought about by the collapse of Evergrande. Let's see whether it is a heroic act or it is really "too big to fail."
——No
one can predict the situation of Evergrande for a year or two, and everyone can only take one step at a time.
After a few days of heated discussions online, the mood gradually calmed down and began to prepare for the upcoming Spring Festival.
For the film and television industry, the most concerned is naturally the upcoming Spring Festival.
Affected by the flu, most of the crews stopped last year, and no new projects started for more than half a year. However, many films that were originally scheduled to be released last year were also postponed. With the two sides offsetting each other, this year's Spring Festival is still quite lively.
In addition to the annual fixed "Boonie Bears", this year's Spring Festival also includes Zhang Yimou's "On the Cliff", Lu Yang's "Assassination of Novelist", Jia Ling's first directorial "Hello, Li Huanying", Rao Xiaozhi's remake of "The Crowd" in the interval of "The Interpreter", and "The Order of the Samurai" adapted from "Onmyoji", etc. A total of eight movies.
Here, "Hello, Li Huanying" is produced by Hengten, "Assassination of Novelist" is co-produced by Arclight, and Arclight also participated in the investment of "The Crowd".
In total, there are three movies related to Meng Bai in the entire Spring Festival, which is a bit like hitting himself.
But there is no way, many of the movies postponed last year have been squeezed into this year. There are only a few big schedules in a year, and there are so many projects invested by Arclight, there will always be duplications.
In the subsequent summer and National Day schedules, there are also multiple projects such as "Mistaken Manslaughter" and "Send You a Little Red Flower". Conflicts are inevitable, and we can only try to coordinate and avoid the same type of movies competing in the same venue.
For this point, Meng Bai also comforted himself. Anyway, he will make money in the end if any movie has a big box office, and it doesn't matter whether it is "self-killing".
Among these three movies, he is most concerned about "Assassination of Novelist", after all, the heroine is Li Qin. If the box office results are good, then her results and status can be improved.
He also went to the premiere press conference of the movie. It was a bit surprising that he saw Teacher Li, who was completely different from the past style, on the scene.
The black outfit unexpectedly matches her cold face. Combined with the neat skills and cold style of the heroine "Tu Ling" in the trailer, she has a more cold and beautiful temperament.
Meng Bai sat in the audience, with his chin on one hand, looking at his cool girlfriend on the screen, and made up his mind that he must let this girl try more different styles of roles in the future.
Just like now, if it weren't for this movie, who would have thought that she was still suitable for this type.
Today's "dress-up play" +1.
But then again, attention is attention, but if he were to predict, the box office of this movie would not be low, but it should not be too high, at most a few billion.
This has nothing to do with the quality of the movie, it is simply because this kind of fantasy-themed work has a relatively low box office ceiling. Especially at a time like the Spring Festival, the most popular ones are definitely family-friendly comedies.
For example, "Hello, Li Huanying", Jia Ling's first directorial work.
There was a comedy sketch before this movie, which was quite popular at the time. Moreover, Jia Ling had a good reputation among the public and had a strong audience base. This time, she also used her connections to bring Shen Teng over to play a supporting role for her, which maximized her appeal.
It can be said that as long as the quality of this movie is up to standard, the final box office will definitely be inevitable.
As a producer, Chen Zhixi is also very confident about this movie. The production cost of the film was only 150 million, and the publicity and distribution costs exceeded 200 million.
During the period before the Spring Festival, no matter which platform you use, you can basically see the promotion of "Hello, Li Huanying", as well as the behind-the-scenes relationship between Jia Ling herself and the movie.
This is the operating mode of most movies today.
Why are there often some movies that don't seem to have any special effects or big scenes, but the production costs are higher than those visual effects blockbusters, because almost all the money is spent on marketing expenses.
(End of this chapter)
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