Why did Sun Hongbin take the risk to save LeTV? Was he cheated by a "trustworthy person"?

Editor Liu Liping

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After China Merchants Bank froze Jia Yueting's relevant shares on 20 17, Sun Hongbin and Jia Yueting held a two-day meeting, and they reached a compromise plan: Jia Yueting reluctantly resigned as chairman and Sun Hongbin reluctantly became chairman.

According to an earlier investigation by Prism, the injection of LeTV's assets into LeTV finally failed, partly because LeTV Holdings' equity in LeTV was frozen. If you want to carry out a new round of financing or load into a listed company, you must first unfreeze this part of LeTV's equity.

Once, someone offered to buy LeTV Mall for hundreds of millions of yuan, and Jia Yueting said no; Someone offered10 billion to buy it easily, and Jia Yueting also said no; Someone offered 5 billion yuan to buy LeTV Finance, but Jia Yueting still said no.

Tomorrow (February 23rd), the first working day after the 20 18 Spring Festival holiday, LeTV, under the official helm of Sun Hongbin, will hold an extraordinary shareholders' meeting in a hotel in the outer suburbs of Beijing to vote on a number of proposals. This is the first shareholders' meeting after LeTV's resumption of trading, and the fate of the company will also be known.

Over the past year, Sunac China (0 19 18. HK) (hereinafter referred to as Sunac) invested1500 million yuan to try to save LeTV's crisis, but the result was not satisfactory. The entanglement of related party transactions led to hopeless repayment, and the restructuring ran aground due to the freezing of shares by several banks. Jia Yueting left the United States, and Sun Hongbin tried to turn the tide ... LeTV, a huge ship, eventually came to a standstill.

If the Jia Yueting era, LeTV (300 104. SZ) founded and developed, leading the surging LeTV to the capital market, which is the first half of LeTV; Then, the second half of LeTV is the Sun Hongbin era, where investors become the helm and try to save LeTV.

In the past few months, Tencent Prism interviewed a number of current and former LeTV executives and major institutional investors who had personally participated in the dispute between Sun and Jia, trying to see through this representative case of modern business evolution by restoring the key fragments of Sun Hongbin's main stage since he entered LeTV.

Liu Chuanzhi's game

45-year-old Jia Yueting has had numerous high-light moments, and the last time was on the eve of his defeat.

These scenes, which may embarrass many people today, often happen in the conference room on the 0/7 floor of LeTV Building/KLOC-0. 20 16 1 month, six months before the life-and-death crisis triggered by the capital chain broke out, he welcomed Liu Chuanzhi in this office.

On this day, a few young executives of LeTV were encouraged. This entrepreneur, who enjoys a high reputation in China's business circles, made no secret of his appreciation of Jia Yueting. He even compared Jia Yueting to "Jack Welch of China" at the scene. After listening to the audience's introduction to the seven ecology of LeTV, he marveled that Jia Yueting had done so many things under the situation that "the company's capital chain was so tight".

More than two years later, Sun Hongbin, one of Liu Chuanzhi's favorite students and chairman of Sunac China's board of directors, repeated this sentence many times, which was an important support for his investment of 65.438+05 billion yuan to save LeTV.

Liu Chuanzhi's appreciation of Jia Yueting is not polite and flattering, because he witnessed the death of Jia Yueting. In 20 13, he visited letv at the invitation of ma yun, chairman of Alibaba board of directors. In the following two years, LeTV suffered a life-and-death crisis, but then it grew into a superstar with a market value exceeding150 billion yuan in the capital market.

Therefore, after the 20 16 visit, Liu Chuanzhi decided to help the young man. He quickly urged Jia Yueting to become a member of china entrepreneur club. In the middle of 20 16, the club only added five members: Jia Yueting, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, Tsinghua Holdings Chairman Xu Jinghong, HTC Chairman Wang Xuehong and Haidilao founder Zhang Yong.

2065438+On April 24th, 2006, Jia Yueting became the director of china entrepreneur club, and Liu Chuanzhi, then the president of the club, presented Jia Yueting with a certificate. (Source: official website, china entrepreneur club)

"(Usually) it takes one year to apply, and then it will be assessed and voted after half a year." An executive of LeTV Holdings said that it took only two weeks for Jia Yueting to apply for membership and recommend becoming a director. China entrepreneur club was founded in 2006. As a vanity fair for top entrepreneurs in China, it is almost essential to consider the qualifications of directors. It must be jointly recommended by two directors of china entrepreneur club, and all directors must vote without objection.

Jia Yueting's entry soon paid off. Six months later, from 2065438 to September 2006, in the first round of financing of $ 108 billion announced by LeTV, the principals or investors of Legend Holdings, Minsheng Trust and Xinhualian who participated in the investment were all on the list of china entrepreneur club's board of directors. So did Shen Guojun, chairman of Yintai Group, who later helped LeTV establish contact with the local government in Zhejiang.

When "LeTV" reached the peak of the market value of 65.438+050 billion yuan, Liu Chuanzhi even had the idea of "madness". People close to Liu Chuanzhi told Tencent Prism that Liu initially even had the idea of letting LeTV reorganize Lenovo's mobile phone business. "Lenovo itself is a hardware company, and Lenovo's mobile phone is placed under LeTV's mobile phone, so the reorganized company has both TV and mobile phone." The source said that at that time, investment institutions were already promoting this matter.

Legend Holdings did not respond to a request for comment from Prism.

At this time, Lenovo Group acquired MOTO's mobile business from Google in 20 14, which brought high M&A cost to Lenovo Group-the mobile phone business did not improve, and it lost money for the first time since it went public in 20 15.

But this statement was also denied by another person close to Lenovo and LeTV. "That's not. Liu Zong (Liu Chuanzhi) has a steady style. With his age and physical condition, he will not take such a risk. " He said that it is more likely that some people have had the idea of "planting" this minority view on the helmsman.

Sun Hongbin Online.

In any case, Liu Chuanzhi's support for Jia Yueting's evaluation and actions, to a certain extent, gave more credibility to the PPT crazy about Jia Yueting. More importantly, on 20 16, when LeTV's real life was in danger, it was enough for Sun Hongbin to take risks.

Later, the story is well known to domestic investors: without warning, Jia Yueting finally voluntarily admitted that LeTV as a whole was caught in a capital chain crisis 20 1 1.06. 20 17, 1.07, Sun Hongbin entered the market for "running" with1500 million, and bought letv on a large scale.

On June 5, 20 17, 17, Jia Yueting and Sun Hongbin explained the relevant details of Sunac's strategic investment in LeTV.

34 days, from the first meeting of the two to the final signing of the investment agreement. Sun Hongbin took the seat at the scene and hired a team invested by Legend Holdings and Oceanwide Group to conduct due diligence, with PricewaterhouseCoopers as the auditor.

A middle-level LeTV official said, "Sun Hongbin must find someone he can trust to do such a business.". This "trustworthy person" is Li, the former investment director of Legend Holdings' strategic investment department. He previously led Legend Holdings' investment project in LeTV. This post-80s investor mainly focuses on the TMT field and has a good personal relationship with Sun Hongbin.

After this battle, Li Shen won the appreciation of Sun Hongbin and Wang Mengde, executive director and chief executive officer of Sunac China, and even later "dug" him to Sunac to take charge of investment business.

However, the hasty investment in LeTV has brought endless troubles to Sun Hongbin and Sunac under his helm.

"The best tuning is very poor and very rough." A person who has seen the detailed account book told Tencent Prism that he thinks the detailed account book can be matched with related party transactions. The key problem lies in the two "holes" of mobile phones and cars, which do not have hematopoietic capacity, but the cost is about 20 billion.

Another person also complained that although "all the bills are in the digital account, he (Sun Hongbin) didn't know which ones were returned and which ones weren't, and he didn't expect the cash flow pressure to be so great".

After the Spring Festival on 20 17, LeTV actively welcomed the official presence of the "second shareholder". At that time, in the absence of independent offices, Jia Yueting arranged for his subordinates to separate two independent offices with glass partitions.

Sun Hongbin's "Finance Minister" Liu Shuqing was the first to enter. The first thing Liu Shuqing did was to require that all the financial access of LeTV must go through his hands, which greatly limited the convenience of "misappropriating" and "borrowing" funds between various ecosystems in the previous LeTV system.

However, trouble soon came. Sunac's real money quickly entered LeTV's account, but these funds soon disappeared. Tencent Prism learned that the investment of 654.38+05 billion yuan was received in three batches, of which Jia Yueting personally received 6.04/kloc-0.00 billion yuan. In addition to paying 20% of personal income tax and paying 654.38+09 billion yuan of corporate bonds, some money was also pledged to the bank.

"The money is gone three or two times, and soon." A core executive of LeTV told the English version of Prism.com that "a company with a market value of 100 billion yuan needs strong cash flow as a support to operate normally, and these funds will soon be used up". "The operation of the enterprise itself consumes capital, copyright costs, operating costs and labor costs, not counting financial costs and debt interest." The above-mentioned LeTV middle level said that this money may maintain normal operation, but it cannot solve LeTV's debt problem.

20 17, 165438+ 10. In an interview with Tencent Prism in the United States, Jia Yueting revealed that at that time, his shares in LeTV's unlisted system, real estate system and listed company system, as well as about 40 billion yuan of assets were frozen in China, and the debt of the whole LeTV was about 20 billion yuan, of which/kloc. "At the highest time, I guaranteed more than 40 billion. Later, my grandson (Sun Hongbin) gave me money, and I paid back all the bank loans. "

The mire is deeper than the abyss and bigger than the sea.

As soon as he entered LeTV, he was as deep as the sea. Perhaps Sun Hongbin found that the reality of LeTV was far more cruel than his dream.

According to the early plan, Sun Hongbin tried to cut LeTV and its unlisted companies. The idea at that time was that the LeTV system was divided into three parts: the listed company LeTV and the unlisted company LeTV. Unfortunately, the listed companies and non-listed companies in the LeTV system are "integrated", and the sharp knife is constantly confusing.

Take LeTV as an example. Letv super tv's production belongs to Letv Zhixin, a listed company system, but it sells LePar, a non-listed company system. In other words, every time LeEco Zhixin sells a LeEco super tv, the payment will be transferred to LeEco Zhixin through LePar. LePar's unlisted company system itself has made many debt guarantees for LeTV Mobile (that is, LeTV's mobile phone business).

As a result, the accounts receivable owed by non-listed companies to LeTV are "obviously there, but it is still late".

"Prism" learned that at this time, Sun Hongbin simply gave a suggestion to dispose of all the businesses of the unlisted company system for repayment. At the performance conference of Sunac China 20 16 in May, 20 17, Sun Hongbin also publicly stated that the future of LeTV system will be composed of listed companies and automobiles. For non-listed companies such as LeTV Sports and Yizhi, "what should be sold is cooperation" and the automobile part "what should be done is in Jia Yueting".

But Jia Yueting didn't listen to the advice of his fellow villagers who were 10 years older than him. Some people bid hundreds of millions to buy LeTV Mall, and Jia Yueting said no; Someone offered10 billion to buy it easily, and Jia Yueting also said no; Someone offered 5 billion yuan to buy LeTV Finance, but Jia Yueting still said no.

"Lao Jia won't even give up a feather." 2065438+At the interim results conference held by Sunac in China in September 2007, Sun Hongbin took off her glasses and burst into tears.

Accounts receivable from related party transactions seem to be a "dead knot": the longer the delay, the lower the residual value of assets; The lower the residual value of assets, the less it is enough to fill the pit.

What makes Sun Hongbin even more helpless is that the English version of Prism.com has learned that the equity of Sunac China's investment in LeTV has not even been completely transferred. The reason is that after the shares of LeTV held by Jia Yueting and LeTV Holdings were frozen, the ongoing equity transfer procedures could not be carried out.

Prism verified that the injection of LeTV's assets into LeTV finally failed, to a certain extent, because LeTV Holdings' equity in LeTV was frozen. If you want to carry out a new round of financing or load into a listed company, you must first unfreeze the equity of LeTV. However, if the equity of LeTV Pictures is thawed, it is necessary to repay the arrears of LeTV's mobile phone first. Obviously, Jia Yueting cannot return it for the time being.

On the day before LeTV resumed trading, Sun Hongbin, the knight of the White Horse, left "people sometimes dare to call the sun and the moon for a new day, and sometimes they are willing to lose the bet."

Since the resumption of trading on October 24th, 2065438+2008/kloc-0, LeTV has recorded 14 daily limit. By the end of the Spring Festival, its share price had dropped from 15.33 yuan to 4.42 yuan, and its market value had dropped by three quarters.

Tencent Prism calculates that up to now, Sunac has invested 654.38+05.372 billion yuan in the subsidiaries of LeTV, borrowed 654.38+07.9 billion yuan, and acquired a total of 5.204 billion yuan in two real estate projects of LeTV.

Two men from "same robe" to cutting

In this rescue, Jia Yueting's role is hard to say.

Back in July, 2007, Jia Yueting went on a business trip to the United States as planned to deal with his personal investment in the American electric car brand Faraday Future(FF). At that time, the plan was two weeks, and I would return to China at the end of July at most. His wife Gan Wei even prepared seven changes of clothes for her husband, one every two days.

However, on Jia Yueting's flight to the United States, Tencent Prism disclosed exclusively that the assets of Mr. and Mrs. Jia Yueting and Sanjiale TV Company totaled 654.38+0.237 billion, which was applied for judicial freezing by China Merchants Bank. Letv subsequently submitted a written complaint to the Shanghai Higher People's Court, claiming that the total value of assets actually frozen and sealed up by China Merchants Bank reached 2,665,438 yuan+62 million yuan.

This move caught Jia Yueting and Sun Hongbin off guard, but Jia Yueting, as the chairman of the listed company LeTV, had to respond to it. Tencent Prism learned that after two days of talks, Sun Hongbin and Jia Yueting reached a compromise plan: Jia Yueting reluctantly resigned as chairman and Sun Hongbin reluctantly became chairman.

There is no choice: if Jia Yueting resigns as chairman, the company may fail to operate and go bankrupt due to too many runs; If Jia Yueting resigns as chairman, he may lose control of the company. Sun Hongbin's appointment as chairman may become a pillar of confidence for LeTV to some extent. However, with the second largest shareholder as the chairman, it is necessary to bear the overall risks and liabilities of LeTV.

Prism Net English failed to learn more details about the plan they discussed, but since then, there has been a gap between Sun and Jia.

"Because of the chairman's incident in July, Mr. Jia and Mr. Sun did not communicate directly for a long time." The above-mentioned LeTV Holdings executives said that the communication between them is through executives such as ricas.

Realizing that he could not go abroad again in a short time after returning home, Jia Yueting chose to travel back and forth between the United States and China, just as he did three years ago to avoid the crisis. During this period, many LeTV executives, including Andy, the chief financial officer of LeTV, and Lei, the chairman of LeTV Sports, all flew to Hong Kong to meet the debts of LeTV-related sectors with Jia Yueting.

During Jia Yueting's stay in Hong Kong, Sun Hongbin had to fly to Hong Kong in person to discuss asset reduction and debt solution with Jia. He also helped Jia Yueting to find a third-party platform willing to take over, trying to persuade Jia Yueting to give up the status of major shareholder of listed companies, so as to unfreeze the equity freeze of judicial institutions and fill the "hole" of debts such as related party transactions. "In fact, there is a chance, but Lao Jia's asking price is too high." The above-mentioned LeTV middle level said.

After LeTV resumed trading, the relationship between Sun Hongbin and Jia Yueting seemed to be out of control and tense. Letv and Letv Holdings frequently "speak from the air" and expose their scars to each other. Jia Yueting's wife, Gan Wei, just said that more than 3 billion related debts have been settled, and LeTV immediately issued a clarification announcement to deny it. Letv has just announced that the debt related to Letv is 7.5365438 billion yuan, but Letv Holdings has clarified that it is only 6 billion yuan.

Letv even announced in the form of an announcement that it would take all means, including legal means, and promised to collect debts from Jia Yueting.

Sun Hongbin still praised Jia Yueting's entrepreneurial spirit in public. However, a Weibo praised by Ceng Dian seems to indirectly express his dissatisfaction-this Weibo comes from an offline dealer of LeTV: "At present, Sun Hongbin has been completely cruel, and if he doesn't agree, Lao Jia will explode his position. The announcement of the stock price further demonstrated his determination. Lao Jia has no choice but to compromise. "

"As soon as the solution to a problem comes out, it may be covered by new problems, and it is necessary to constantly find new solutions ... sometimes even deadlock occurs." A core executive of LeTV said.

"If I go back and start again, I believe that Lao Sun will definitely not enter this game," said the above-mentioned LeTV Holdings executive.

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