In the month just after his fiftieth birthday, Shao Zhongyi, once the richest man in Shandong, went bankrupt.
Shao Zhongyi is the chairman of Chenxi Group, a key industrial enterprise in Shandong Province.The company is located in Ju County, Shandong Province, with petrochemical, grain and oil processing, international trade, and cultural tourism as its four main businesses.
On July 16, Chenxi Group applied to the Ju County People's Court for bankruptcy and reorganization on the grounds that it could not pay off its due debts and obviously lacked solvency.The court found that: Shandong Chenxi Group Co., Ltd. was established on December 1, 1999. It is now insolvent and unable to pay off due debts.
According to a series of rulings made by the People's Court of Ju County from July 20 to July 26 this year, Chenxi Group and its 17 affiliated companies, its subsidiary Haiyou Petrochemical Group and two affiliated companies—a total of 21 companiesThe application for bankruptcy and reorganization has been accepted.
In 2016, Shao Zhongyi became the richest man in Shandong on the Hurun Rich List that year with a net worth of 19 billion yuan.At that time, we were also very surprised that the richest man in Shandong came out of Ju County.A government worker in Ju County told reporters.Chenxi Group filed for bankruptcy less than 900 days after Shao Zhongyi became the richest man in Shandong.
On August 8, the reporter tried to contact Shao Zhongyi.Shao Zhongyi only responded to express his gratitude for his concern, but did not respond to questions related to bankruptcy.Another executive surnamed Hu of Chenxi Group contacted by the reporter did not reply.
Sudden bankruptcy
Juxian County is under the jurisdiction of Rizhao City, Shandong Province, and is located in the southeast of Shandong Province. There are many restaurants with whole sheep dishes as their signatures in the county.Primary business forms are gathered locally in groups, for example, there are large and small auto parts and auto repair stores on both sides of the road in front of Chenxi Vegetable Oil Company.According to the locals, summer is the peak tourist season here.
For a long time, Shao Zhongyi's Chenxi Group has been a well-known star enterprise in the local area.
In the southern suburbs of Ju County, starting from Lizheng Garden, a scenic spot built by Shao Zhongyi with an investment of 1 billion yuan, along the southwest direction to Liuguanzhuang Town, where Chenxi Group is located, this section of National Highway 206, which is about five kilometers long, is named Chenxi Road.Continue to go south along the 206 National Highway, that is, to Shandong Haiyou Petrochemical Group, a subsidiary of Chenxi Group, which undertakes petrochemical business.
In Ju County, if you mention Chenxi Group to the locals, almost everyone knows that the company run by Shao Zhongyi, a native of Ju County, has recently gone bankrupt.A taxi driver tapped his mobile phone on the center console: I saw it on Toutiao, the news of Chenxi's bankruptcy was posted for several days, and the whole world knew about it.A bus driver wearing the overalls of Fulaichun Group, another well-known local company in Ju County, said that Shao Zhongyi is a representative of the National People's Congress, and the local people knew about Chenxi's bankruptcy, but the workers were not affected.
In the official statement of Ju County, Chenxi Group, especially Haiyou Group, is a backbone enterprise that drives industry growth, and its importance to the local area can be seen from the tax data.According to the official website of the Juxian government, Chenxi Group paid 4.1144 billion yuan in various taxes to the state in 2011, with an average tax payment of more than 10 million yuan per working day; in the first half of 2014, the various taxes paid to the state reached 4.725 billion yuan.
It was also very sudden for us. We only knew that Chenxi went bankrupt after seeing the court's online announcement.On August 6, a person in charge of the Ju County Economic and Information Bureau (hereinafter referred to as the Economic and Information Bureau) told reporters.The person in charge said that the department staff of the Bureau of Economics and Information Technology went to the enterprise to understand the situation around July 28, and learned that the enterprise was still in normal production and operation.
Compared with the shock brought by the application for bankruptcy and reorganization to the outside world, the reporter visited the headquarters of Chenxi Group in Liuguanzhuang Town on August 5th and 6th and found that the group still seems to follow the original order, which proves that the Juxian Economic TrustBureau's statement that the group is still functioning normally.After 7:30 in the morning, employees walked into the gate one after another and clocked in on the fingerprint time attendance machine on the left side of the hall.From time to time, a bus with Haiyou Petrochemical printed on it, which can carry 50-60 people, stops here to pick up employees in light gray overalls and go to work at Haiyou Company 10 kilometers away.An employee who has worked in Haiyou for eight years told the reporter that there are six buses in the morning, and they go around various stops in Ju County to pick up and drop off employees living in this area and surrounding villages.
When asked whether they were worried about job changes caused by the company's bankruptcy and reorganization, all the employees randomly interviewed by the reporter gave negative answers.According to the announcement of the People's Court of Juxian County, the bankruptcy and reorganization of Chenxi Group and its affiliated companies is currently in the stage of the creditor's declaration of bonds to the debtor's administrator.The debt has not been settled yet, and I still go to work.The guard of Chenxi Group said.An employee told the reporter: (the group) is always taken over by other big companies, and there are so many people in the (company).Some employees said that after Chenxi filed for bankruptcy, they were busier than before because of the increase in audit work. The company's leaders were also busy with meetings and rarely came to the company.
A notice posted on the outer wall of the office building of Chenxi Group shows that the company provides subsidies to employees in the name of seniority allowance, night shift allowance, student grant, and wedding holiday gift.After that, it will be increased by 100 yuan each year to a cap of 1,000 yuan; the student aid means that employees' children can receive a one-time subsidy of 3,000 yuan for the first school, and 2,000 yuan for the second school.An employee attested to the existence of the perks: money for increased seniority and for children to go to college.
At the entrance of Haiyou Group, the reporter was not allowed to enter because the park is a production site.
Directly across from Haiyou Group on National Highway 206 is a Haiyou petrochemical gas station. Inside the station is a banner saying that it is better to explain the price for a while than to apologize for the quality for a lifetime.According to the staff wearing the gray overalls of the Haiyou Group, this is currently the only Haiyou gas station.There are two No. 95 gasoline and two diesel fuel dispensers in the station. The price of No. 95 gasoline is 7.05 yuan per liter. Diesel has been discontinued. The staff explained that it was sold out and had not been replenished. The price was 60 cents cheaper per liter than Sinopec.money.
Diagonally opposite this Haiyou gas station is a Sinopec gas station.When asked about the sales volume, the staff admitted frankly that the opposite was Sinopec. What do you think?He told reporters that this gas station basically only supplies internal refueling; of course, Haiyou's profit is not the gas station, but the refined oil produced in the park.
Low-key Shao Zhongyi
As the chairman of Chenxi Group, Shao Zhongyi's media exposure is extremely limited.In a 2013 NPC and CPPCC interview video on Guangming.com, Shao Zhongyi speaks a mandarin that people in Juxian call hard, with a local accent, carefully choosing words and sentences.
At the company headquarters, some employees told reporters that it is rare to meet Shao Zhongyi here.
The layout of Chenxi Group reveals a clue to understand Shao Zhongyi.In the southeast corner of the group, on the back of a one-person high group stone engraved with the word "Chenxi", two lyrics of Dongfanghong are engraved.Entering the group hall, in the middle is a mahogany statue of Mao Zedong.A huge portrait of Mao Zedong hangs on the wall on the right side of the hall.In a 2013 report on the official website of Chenxi Group, Shao Zhongyi mentioned that he was encouraged by the spirit of Mao Zedong’s Long March when he was the most difficult time to start a business.
According to a report by Qilu Evening News in 2010, Shao Zhongyi started his career in 1994. At the age of 26, he took over Yimeng Plastic Factory, a township enterprise with only 14 employees, with 5,000 yuan he had collected.In the early years, Shao Zhongyi and his subordinates drove an old Santana in the factory to look for raw material suppliers, often traveling overnight, with pancakes in the trunk, and filled the pancakes with cold water when they were hungry.
The business-minded Shao Zhongyi spent six years turning a workshop-style blow molding company into a large-scale plastics processing company and obtained the right to import and export.During the reform of state-owned enterprises in Juxian County in 2003, Shao Zhongyi merged the local Juxian Fertilizer Factory that was about to close down.According to the report on the official website of Chenxi Group, Shao Zhongyi merged the chemical fertilizer factory under the pressure of the economy, accepted all the employees of the original factory, and invested in technological transformation amidst the opposition of his family and factory workers.Then he successively merged the machinery factoryVegetable oil factory and other five local state-owned enterprises, the embryonic form of Shandong Chenxi Group has taken shape.
In 2005, Chenxi Group began to get involved in petrochemicals; in 2006, it was approved by the Ministry of Commerce to import fuel oil; in 2013, it obtained the qualification for wholesale operation of refined oil products;Non-state trade import qualification, becoming one of the 13 domestic private enterprises with self-operated crude oil import qualification.
At the same time, Chenxi Group's business diversification has expanded to trade and cultural tourism.Chenxi Group's revenue jumped from 300 million yuan in 2003 to 76.2 billion yuan in 2013.
Around 2012, Chenxi Group entered a period of rapid expansion under the command of Shao Zhongyi.Public information shows that in 2012, Chenxi Group invested 3.7 billion yuan in the construction of the top ten projects in Juxian County; it invested more than 3 billion yuan in construction projects in Xishuangbanna, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Qingdao, Linyi and other places.In an interview with the media at the beginning of 2013, Shao Zhongyi said that it is expected that all these projects will be completed and put into production within two to three years. By then, it will be equivalent to recreating Chenxi Group, with sales revenue exceeding 100 billion, tax payment exceeding 20 billion, and becoming one of the top 500 enterprises in the country.
There have been no subsequent reports on these projects.The overly broad and hasty investment is considered to have planted hidden dangers for Chenxi Group.
Bankruptcy Fog
According to the announcement issued by the People's Court of Ju County, it was found that Chenxi Group is now insolvent and unable to pay off its due debts.The court declined to be interviewed.
In this bankruptcy case, the specific reasons for the bankruptcy of Chenxi Group and the current progress are still in the fog.
The Liuguanzhuang Town Government, the Ju County Economic and Information Office and the Ju County Financial Work Office (hereinafter referred to as the Financial Office) of the Chenxi Group’s territory visited by the reporter all stated that they had not participated in the bankruptcy and reorganization of the Chenxi Group.A staff member of the Finance Office speculated that the bankruptcy and reorganization case may involve a higher level.The above-mentioned person in charge of the Economic and Information Office told reporters that they hope to know the current progress of Chenxi Group's bankruptcy case, but we can't understand the situation now.
A leader of the Ju County Market Supervision and Administration Bureau replied to the reporter through his subordinates: Chenxi’s operation was relatively stable during the reorganization, and the officials do not want to make too much hype, so as not to interfere with the reorganization.
Among the companies whose bankruptcy and reorganization applications were accepted this time, the reporter visited and found that more than one of them was suspected to have ceased operations before.
Two adjacent companies located along the 206 National Road, Juxian Hongrun Construction and Installation Engineering Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Hongrun Construction) and Shandong Yongfei International Trade Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Yongfei International Trade Co., Ltd.) are both companies in the bankruptcy reorganization of Chenxi Group.Affiliated enterprises.It can be seen that the facilities in Hongrun Construction Company are idle, and some personnel who are still working in the factory said that they have no relationship with Chenxi Group.
At the entrance of the Yongfei International Trade Company’s office building facing away from the national highway, there is a signboard of Juhua.com. Public information shows that Juhua.com is a spot trading platform for chemical raw materials, which is developed and operated by Riju E-Commerce Co., Ltd., which has nothing to do with Chenxi Group.In addition, there is no sign of office in the building. A man in the manager's office who denied that he was related to Yongfei told reporters that Yongfei International Trade Center was empty the year before last, and the site of Hongrun Building had also been rented out to other units.
The reporter dialed the contact number left in the annual report of Yongfei International Trade in the national enterprise credit information publicity system, and the person who connected said that he was not clear about the operation of Yongfei International Trade, so he hung up immediately.
According to Chenxi Group's official website, the group's trading business mainly covers the import and processing of soybeans, fuel oil, crude oil, and petrochemical products, among which soybean trading is the main body; the trading business achieved sales revenue of 26.1 billion yuan in 2016.According to the official website of the Juxian government, Chenxi Chemical and Yongfei International Trade, a subsidiary of Chenxi Group, imported a total of US$4.34 billion in the first ten months of 2013, accounting for more than 95% of the county's total imports.
Why Chenxi Group went bankrupt, the reporter could not find a direct answer in Ju County.
On August 7, the staff of the News Section of the Ju County People’s Government told reporters that the current bankruptcy and reorganization case of Chenxi Group is subject to the announcement issued by the Ju County People’s Court, and there is no more content to be disclosed; as for whether a bankruptcy team has been established,The staff reply should have.The staff member said that he hoped to provide Chenxi Group with a stable and relaxed restructuring environment, and it was not convenient to accept an interview.
The reporter tried to contact Shao Zhongyi and an executive surnamed Hu of Chenxi Group.Shao Zhongyi only replied to express his gratitude for his concern, but did not respond to questions related to bankruptcy; the executive surnamed Hu did not reply.
Regarding the bankruptcy of Chenxi Group, a relatively wide speculation is that the capital chain is broken.
Chenxi Group, especially Haiyou Petrochemical, is a leader in our local petrochemical industry, and the industrial chain has been upgrading.There is no problem with production and operation, but there may be a lack of money.The person in charge of the above-mentioned Economic and Information Bureau told reporters.
An analysis of the economic operation of industrial enterprises above designated size in the third quarter of 2017 released by the Bureau of Economy and Information Technology in December last year showed that the fire protection procedures of Haiyou Petrochemical Co.The investment is relatively large, and the company has accumulated a loss of 170 million yuan.According to the economic performance from January to April of this year released by the Economic and Information Office in June this year, since April, the production of key backbone enterprises such as Haiyou Petrochemical has gradually stabilized, driving the rapid growth of industrial production in the county.
In addition, Haiyou Industrial Park was included in the 1+1+2 chemical industry park framework of Rizhao City last year, becoming one of the 22 chemical industry parks in Shandong Province.The 1 million tons/year delayed coking unit and supporting projects jointly invested and constructed by Beijing Sanju Environmental Protection New Materials Co., Ltd. and Shandong Haiyou Petrochemical Group were selected as 22 key industrial projects in Ju County and started construction in May last year.
The shortage of funds is a chronic problem of Chenxi.In August 2014, Chenxi Group's liquidity shortage broke out, and the official statement from the Ju County Government was that it was affected by trade financing risks.Subsequently, the local government quickly intervened and adopted a series of measures such as crossing the bridge of financial funds, issuing syndicated loans, accelerating the downsizing of enterprises, and optimizing the governance structure.In the same month, Chenxi Group successfully issued 2 billion short-term financing bonds, which were underwritten by Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.Since then, in 2015, Chenxi Group also successively reported that its cultural assets planned to go public through a backdoor, that it planned to push its subsidiaries to the New Third Board, and that it launched the issuance of 3 billion yuan of corporate bonds, but the following did not appear.
On the other hand, from August 2014 when Chenxi Group’s funding problem broke out to the second half of last year, county, provincial and municipal leaders have visited Chenxi Group several times to investigate the resolution of corporate financing risks.Cooperation.
On July 29 this year, after Chenxi Group and Haiyou Group filed for bankruptcy and reorganization, Fei Lizhi, deputy secretary of the Juxian County Party Committee and county magistrate, went to Haiyou Petrochemical Group to supervise and investigate, and proposed to speed up project construction.
The reporter asked some local banks in Ju County whether Chenxi Group owed debts.The Ju County Rural Commercial Bank stated that the details of Chenxi’s bankruptcy and reorganization are still being understood and investigated, and they will not be interviewed for the time being; the Juxian Branch of China Construction Bank confirmed that Chenxi Group is a bank customer, but there are specific details about whether the Chenxi bankruptcy and reorganization case involves bank loans.Information was not disclosed.
The reporter checked the China Judgment Documents Network and found that Chenxi Group and Haiyou Group had previously been involved in legal disputes due to funding issues.Minsheng Financial Leasing Co., Ltd., Bank of Communications Financial Leasing Co., Ltd., and Agricultural Bank of China Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. have filed lawsuits against Chenxi Group and Haiyou Group to recover debts
According to a November 2016 judgment issued by the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court of Zhejiang Province, Minsheng Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. applied to the court for property preservation and requested to freeze the banks of the respondent Haiyou Petrochemical, Shandong Chenxi, Shao Zhongyi, and Wu Haijun (Haiyou Petrochemical legal person)Deposits of more than 77.26 million yuan or the corresponding properties of equivalent value were sealed up and seized, and the court ruled to execute them.In December 2017, the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court ruled that Haiyou Petrochemical paid more than 64.11 million yuan of unpaid rent to Minsheng Finance and paid more than 13.14 million yuan in liquidated damages for overdue payments. Shandong Chenxi Group Co., Ltd., Shao Zhongyi, and Wu Haijun were jointly and severally liable.
November 2016, hand inFinancial Leasing Co., Ltd. sued Haiyou Petrochemical, Shandong Chenxi and other units to the court, requesting the court to order Haiyou Petrochemical to return the leased objects and equipment, and to pay the loss calculated on the basis of all unpaid rent amounting to RMB 297 million andInterest.
In addition, according to China Business News, Agricultural Bank of China Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. also filed a lawsuit against Chenxi Group and Haiyou Group to recover debts in 2016.Agricultural Bank of China Financial Leasing stated that it signed a financial lease contract with Haiyou Petrochemical, and Shandong Chenxi provided a guarantee. As of September 20, 2016, Haiyou Petrochemical had a payable rent of more than 100 million yuan and a penalty interest of 13 million yuan, totaling more than 1.15 million yuan.billion.
