The Birth of Shanghai's First Conglomerate

Chapter 614 Nervous
Shanghai in April was still tense.

The most obvious change is that fewer people are shopping and more people are eating at home.

Restaurants and large gathering places are visibly less crowded.

Even her sister-in-law, who works in the entertainment industry, was forced to stop working due to well-known reasons.

The shutdown of a film crew is not as simple as the closure of a few shops.

The losses were beyond imagination.

Whenever an outbreak of illness occurs, the film crews and shops in that area will basically fall into a slump.

There's nothing we can do about it; that stuff is just too contagious.

As expected, Tencent Entertainment will suffer losses this year.

Bai Xin reiterated the importance of celebrities promoting products, stating that first, second, and third-tier celebrities don't need to promote them, but those with less fame absolutely need to generate income.

Otherwise, if we continue like this, two out of ten projects will be shut down, and the remaining eight will have worked for nothing.

The pressure has been concentrated on headquarters operations, and in order to save themselves, many companies have proposed to start live-streaming e-commerce.

Even they are no exception.

Chen Pingsheng is actually alright. In any case, the bottom line for traditional sectors this year is that they can at most not make any money.

However, this impacts not only the entertainment and catering sectors.

As a result, Shuiyunjian also experienced a significant decline in performance.

After analysis, it was found that the problem was not with the operation itself, but rather with the continuous improvement over the years.

Shuiyunjian's business has reached its ceiling, mainly because many of its clients are short of cash.

What do you mean?

The assets may not have changed, but they are unable to circulate normally.

A large portion of people's money is tied up in housing.

In other words, houses can no longer be turned over as quickly as they used to.

A house is made of cement and steel bars. In a place like Shanghai, it might be worth 30 to 50 million yuan according to normal housing prices.

This can be called net assets, but once such assets cannot be converted into cash, they are nothing more than steel and cement.

The biggest problem right now is this sector.

Since 08, real estate has been the largest reservoir of liquid funds in China.

It accounts for at least 60% of the family's assets.

However, this money is now difficult to circulate normally.

The assets people hold haven't depreciated yet, but they've already fallen into the first level of predicament.

In other words, it's difficult to cash out.

When this situation occurs, countless families can only mitigate the risk by reducing their spending.

Chen Pingsheng sat in the headquarters conference room, while his secretary Tang Jing took meeting minutes.

The rest are all CEOs who are already financially independent.

Chu Qiuyan, who is under 28, has a personal net worth of over 1 billion yuan.

A true entrepreneurial goddess, Lin Qiunan and Zhang Wanyi are all Tang Jing's predecessors, and now they are powerful female CEOs.

The illness came on suddenly and violently.

The real problem isn't the illness itself, but the series of consequences it causes, the most important of which is a significant decrease in the number of people buying houses.

When houses no longer circulate as quickly as before, the money buried in steel and concrete will become lifeless.

This will minimize the desire to consume, with consequences beyond imagination.

Chu Qiuyan has now taken over as president of the Dream Fund. Her report is that, apart from the early-stage startups that she supported over the past three years, almost none of the current small-scale entrepreneurial projects show much hope.

According to statistics, the basic success rate of small projects supported by the Dream Realization Fund from 2016 to 2018 was around 30%.

Of the companies that can truly grow and thrive from a 30% success rate, no fewer than seven or eight out of a hundred will actually succeed. The basic success rate is now visibly decreasing.

It could even drop to below 15%, which is half the success rate of the past.

Investing is essentially a statistical discipline; out of ten major projects, it would be considered quite good if even one succeeded.

Unlike other funds, the Dream Fund simply invests in small projects, sifting through them and nurturing them to eventually become large-scale listed companies.

Once this basic success rate decreases, it's still as low as half.

Then the subsequent work, including financial pressure, will increase infinitely.

This is also the main reason for the rapid shift in investment towards the big health sector.

The final conclusion can be drawn from the statistics from the Dream Realization Fund.

The next three years will no longer be suitable for small-scale individual entrepreneurship.

If I had to describe it in one word, it would be "nine out of ten ventures fail."

Out of a hundred, probably less than seven or eight will make money; the remaining ninety-odd will all lose several years' worth of family savings.

This is truly winter.

They'd been saying they'd come, and now they're really here.

No company or individual can avoid this situation.

The entire Tencent Video Group, excluding Xinteng Live and Tencent You Media in the short video field.

Apart from Tengfei New Energy, which is not yet listed and therefore not affected, all other companies are fully covered.

Any company with insufficient cash flow reserves faces a life-or-death test.

Just by thinking about how many people will need to find flexible employment again, you can get a general idea of ​​the future economic trend.

Chen Pingsheng's general direction will not change much.

They are responsible for handling the small details themselves.

How to save a business under these economic circumstances is a new challenge for everyone.

After the meeting ended, Chen Pingsheng only said one thing: he could accept the headquarters using money to subsidize employee benefits, but he could not accept that everyone would immediately capsize at the slightest sign of trouble.

To put it bluntly, he has no liabilities. If anyone fails quickly in the process, he can simply shut down that company.

It cannot affect the entire Tengying Group, which has already become a behemoth.

As long as he can ensure the large ship doesn't rock, the remaining small ships will have to figure out their own way.

If you're like Boiling Sheep now, losing two or three hundred million a year is a certainty.

There's no way to change that; that's just how the environment is.

But what if you lose more than a billion, or even two billion, in a year?

That's it.

No shareholder could accept it, and neither could he.

The most stable one is Tenghui Department Store, which owns all of its storefronts. It also previously sold all the department stores and supermarkets it had leased out in other cities to Tengyou Media.

He certainly isn't under any pressure right now.

The newly appointed president of Boiling Sheep was also the first to come up with this solution: reduce the number of stores without reducing staff.

Those stores that suffered excessive losses simply removed the Boiling Sheep signboard and sold the store.

It's not just his company facing this situation; Bobo Milk Tea and Deer Antler Coffee will also face this inevitable choice.

The big boss wants them to save themselves, so they must use their knives to cut down those loss-making stores.

As for stock prices, as long as you don't cash out, whether it's one dollar or ten dollars doesn't really matter.

Selling the store is an inevitable choice in this era.

Having cash on hand is truly a sign of strength these days.

(End of this chapter)