Chutiandudu Daily, October 26 (Reporter Liu Shan) Six years ago, with the halo of “the first A-share sports brand” listed, Lin Tianfu, the founder of Noble Bird, also became the richest man in Quanzhou. When the stock price rises and his price rises, he may not have imagined that he will one day receive a consumption restriction order.
The news that the founder of Noble Bird was restricted from consumption” has rushed to the hot search in the past two days. The once popular noble bird has returned to the public eye, which is embarrassing. Chutiandudu Daily learned that the trouble of the noble bird is far more than the founder’s restricted consumption, but also faces multiple unfavorable situations such as huge performance losses, loan defaults, and related party transactions.
Noble Bird founders are restricted from high consumption
Founded in 1987, Noble Bird Co., Ltd. is located in Jinjiang, the world-famous “shoe capital”. At the beginning of its establishment, Lin Tianfu was only a self-employed brand. In 2002, it began to develop its own brand, focusing on sports shoes and clothing research and development, design, production and sales. At that time, Noble Bird invited Uranus superstar Andy Lau to serve as the brand image spokesperson, which quickly became a hit in the sporting goods market and once became a well-known sports brand.
In January 2014, Noble Bird was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and its market value reached 43.6 billion yuan at its peak in 2015, and Lin Tianfu also became the richest man in Quanzhou with a value of 19 billion yuan. At that time, he may not have imagined that he would one day receive a court order to restrict consumption. On October 22 this year, the Xiamen Intermediate People’s Court issued a consumption restriction order to Noble Bird, restricting the consumption of the company and its legal representative Lin Tianfugao.
Returning to the public’s field of vision, the noble bird of the former infinite scenery quickly attracted attention. Just after 5 years, the market value of Noble Bird is only less than 1.4 billion yuan, and the overall market value has evaporated by more than 40 billion yuan. Tianyan investigation shows that since August this year, Noble Bird has been listed as an executor by the court four times, and all of them are the first time to execute.
In 5 years, the market value of Noble Bird has shrunk by more than 96%, what happened in the middle?
The reporter noticed that at the beginning of the second year of listing, Noble Bird was not satisfied with the single business of sports shoes, and began to take a diversified route and develop towards “all-round sports”. In 2015, Noble Bird became the second largest shareholder of Tiger Pounce Sports, and jointly established a sports industry fund with Tiger Pounce with a total of 2 billion yuan to invest in a number of sports industry sub-industries. In just a few years, Noble Bird has made more than 10 acquisitions, involving sports competition entertainment, sports consumption, sports industry investment, sports insurance, football brokerage and other fields.
The return on investment is not ideal, but it affects the main business of Noble Bird. In order to resolve the capital crisis caused by the acquisition, Noble Bird stepped up the pace of financing, and equity pledge borrowing became one of the important ways of financing, but this move made the company’s situation worse.
Noble Bird’s financial report in the past two years shows that it lost money for the first time in 2018, reaching 686 million yuan. In 2019, the loss exceeded 1 billion yuan. The financial report for the first half of this year showed that the company’s net profit loss attributable to the parent was 161 million yuan, and the net profit margin of sales was -28.84%. If losses continue this year, Noble Bird will face the risk of delisting.
Unclear strategies and failed corporate governance are at the root causes
In response to the Noble Bird incident, Shi Junwei, professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Business Administration of Zhongnan University of Finance and Economics, believes that whether private enterprises are listed or not, a clear development strategy and effective corporate governance are crucial. To become bigger and stronger, it is first of all a strategic issue, which involves how to rationally think about future development and find accurate positioning. What companies can and cannot want must be clearly chosen from a strategic level. Effective corporate governance is the soul of the healthy and sustainable development of enterprises, and is the top-level design of enterprise development, and its purity must be guaranteed. Effective corporate governance can make corporate decision-making more enforceable and avoid decision-making risks.
The root of Noble Bird’s problem is the failure of corporate governance. Before and after the listing, strictly speaking, there was no substantial change in corporate governance, the founder was still a monopoly, and the overly concentrated equity was not conducive to the company making rational and high-quality decisions. Problematic and flawed corporate governance indicates that the company’s top-level design is flawed, and it is difficult to ensure that the strategy and strategy execution system will not go wrong.
“There is nothing wrong with the noble bird in implementing a diversification strategy, it is wrong in the execution system.” Shi Junwei said that from the perspective of corporate strategy, after passing the survival period, to expand and develop, mergers and acquisitions and diversification strategies are feasible strategies for enterprises, and they are also the inevitable choice for enterprises to become bigger and stronger. However, Noble Bird has tripled its stores in two years, and quickly entered upstream and downstream, domestic and foreign, related industries and unrelated industries in a short period of time, which is an almost out of control strategy execution system. Obviously, the stall is too big, the personnel and ideas are not updated in time, the management ability of the senior team cannot keep up, and the strategy execution is out of shape. For enterprises in the expansion period, if there is no effective matching strategy execution system, fatal mistakes in the strategy are inevitable.
Shi Junwei said that the Noble Bird incident tells us that it is not easy for private enterprises to grow and grow, and it is the capital to resist risks by practicing their internal strength and accumulating core competitiveness. Whether it is a private enterprise or a state-owned enterprise, the core capability is important, and the dynamic core capability is even more important. For noble birds, success in the environment is also defeated by the environment. In the early environment, the wind outlet was large, the market was emerging, the competitive pressure was less, there were many opportunities to make money, and the courage to work could make money. In the context of that time, getting rich was a successful method of the original accumulation of most private enterprises. However, after listing, the competitive environment has undergone significant changes, and competitors, customers, partners, etc. should be taken seriously, adjust the playing style in a timely manner, change with the environment, and dynamically adjust the resource combination capacity.
Although Lin Tianfu was restricted from consumption, Noble Bird temporarily encountered difficulties. However, Shi Junwei believes that Lin Tianfu’s entrepreneurial spirit is still worthy of recognition, and his principles and vision for running a business should not be completely rejected. He pointed out that all of Noble Bird’s business is related to sports, which is the basic principle of Lin Tianfu, and the expansion covers the upstream and downstream from the industrial chain, which shows that Lin Tianfu has business layout thinking. It’s just that the rhythm has not been mastered well, and the strategy execution system has made a big mistake. However, entrepreneurs who experience failure should not be evaluated in a make-or-fail mindset. For entrepreneurs like Lin Tianfu, we should be tolerant, understanding and supportive. After all, the experience of developing an obscure enterprise into a well-known brand with a market value of more than 40 billion yuan is Lin Tianfu’s most valuable asset. Even if it is delisted, as long as he can survive and survive, he may create another business empire in the future.
Han style clothing should find its way in perseverance
The plight encountered by the noble bird, Liu Shuren, president of the Wuhan Garment Chamber of Commerce, has also heard about it. He frankly told reporters that the current clothing market as a whole is indeed not good, as far as Noble Bird is concerned, the problems exposed by it are related to the blind expansion of enterprises and excessive operation without grasping financing.
Liu Shuren believes that in the operation of enterprises, some concepts are very good and novel, but they may not be perfectly bound to their own enterprises, how to better land, correctly learn to grasp, effectively absorb and combine, need a gradual process, if easy to try, may pull out seedlings to help. Specific to Hanpai clothing, in the face of the huge temptation of the market, various concepts emerge endlessly, it is difficult to concentrate on one thing, only by truly loving their industry, tempering it in the market, and finding a way out and direction, down-to-earth can stand out.
Liu Shuren said that although Hanpai clothing does not have such a large scale to raise funds in the capital market, it has also suffered losses in bank loans because of poor grasp. Engaged in the clothing industry, more or less need financing, development with the help of financial instruments. However, private enterprises cannot simply concoct, cannot follow the trend, and the risk of over-financing or incorrect financing cannot be ignored, which may be completely different, bringing fundamental lethality to the bottom of the enterprise.
Under the epidemic, Hanpai clothing companies also encountered many difficulties, the market contracted, and offline physical stores were once depressed. With the improvement of the epidemic, the clothing market has gradually recovered. Liu Shuren introduced that the lack of stock in the early stage, the recent rebound in consumption, the demand for down jackets and warm wool coats has increased greatly, and production and processing have become tight. If apparel companies can respond quickly, keep up with the market, and meet consumer needs, it is not difficult to find opportunities from the rapid changes. He suggested that Hanpai enterprises should avoid impetuosity and blindness, should clarify their own positioning, grasp their own advantages, and create core competitiveness in the direction of specialization to better base themselves on the market.
Shi Junwei also said that for Hubei entrepreneurs, the Noble Bird incident is also worth considering, such as how to build an effective corporate governance mechanism, how to effectively use the raised funds, how to formulate a suitable and clear development strategy, and there must be a matching execution system for each strategy, which is a problem that must be considered in depth. The leading business can be extended, but it is necessary to find ways and mechanisms to feed back the main business, otherwise it may eat back into the main business.
