Source: Zebra Consumption (ID: banmaxiaofei) Author: Shen Tuo
Controversy "Lee Big Mouth".
Last week, Li Chuyuan, the "soul man" of Baiyun Mountain, suddenly resigned from all positions in the listed company, and then the news of his investigation came out, and the era of the pharmaceutical "South China Tiger" came to an end.
Li Chuyuan, who was born in a chemistry class, started as an ordinary technician in the late 80s of the last century, and finally took full charge of the listed company, and has served Baiyunshan for 35 years. In another 1 year, he will officially retire, but unfortunately he was not able to land safely.
Despite this, at the helm of Baiyun Mountain for more than ten years, Li Chuyuan has no shortage of commendable points in business management.
He led Wang Laoji to fight with JDB for 11 years, launched Jinge products, hired Nobel laureate Murad as the president of the General Research Institute of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Sciences, and completed the layout of the company's four major business structures.
There is praise and controversy in him, and there may also be original sin.
With Li Chuyuan's "exit", investors are more concerned about who will succeed him at the helm of Baiyun Mountain? How will you lead the company to break through the bottleneck of performance growth.
01
11 years at the helm
Serving Baiyun Mountain (600332. SH) 35 years, Li Chuyuan, a leader who is about to retire, failed to land safely.
In May last year, he was re-elected as chairman of the ninth board of directors, and his term ends in May 2026. Last week, he abruptly resigned from all positions, including chairman.
By all indications, this was not a normal resignation.
Almost overnight, the official website of Baiyunshan's parent company, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, removed information about Li Chuyuan. A number of state media confirmed that Li had been taken away by relevant authorities for investigation and that family members were involved.
After the incident, the company's A-share and H-share stock prices continued to decline for many days. South China's largest pharmaceutical giant is suffering from unspeakable suffering.
Li Chuyuan is a typical technocracy. He studied chemistry at Sun Yat-sen University in his early years and joined Baiyunshan after graduating in 1988. Starting from the laboratory technician of the Shenzhen branch, until 2013, he officially took the helm of this pharmaceutical giant ship.
During his tenure, Baiyun Mountain achieved a great transformation. In 2015, the company basically completed the layout and internal organizational structure of the four major business sectors of Da Nan Pharmaceutical (pharmaceutical manufacturing), big health (beverages and health care products), big business (pharmaceutical circulation) and big medical care (health care and medical devices).
Under his leadership, the company fought fiercely for several years and finally took back the Wanglaoji herbal tea brand; The launch of star products such as Jinge has become a new performance growth point for the company.
On the official website of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, it once commented on the recovery of Wang Laoji: "It not only prevents the loss of state-owned assets, but also creates a new growth point for Guangzhou's social economy." Listed in 2014, Jinge is the only 1 billion-level single product in the company's pharmaceutical manufacturing business segment, and is the leading brand in the domestic men's health drug market.
During Li Chuyuan's tenure at the helm of Baiyunshan, the company's performance soared, with operating income increasing from 17.608 billion yuan in 2013 to 75.52 billion yuan in 2023, and net profit attributable to the parent company increasing from 980 million yuan to 4.056 billion yuan in the same period.
02
Controversy "Li Big Mouth"
Li Chuyuan, who is from a technical background, is also well versed in marketing.
In 2017, at the Fortune magazine global forum, he publicly proposed that drinking Wang Laoji can prolong life by about 10%, which caused a sensation in the audience.
It is unbelievable that an ordinary herbal tea product is openly advocated by the helmsman of the enterprise to prolong life. Later, Wang Laoji had to publicly clarify that this conclusion came from the test samples of 576 rats.
After this huge controversy, Li Chuyuan still can't control his mouth. At the 2018 Boao Economic Forum, he praised his Jinge products, and publicly stated that Jinge has been upgraded from a drug to a sex toy needed by the people. Even, publicly used a simple and crude sentence "I'm afraid it's useless, eat Jinge" to advertise it widely.
Jin Ge, who appeared as a replacement for Viagra, is indeed favored by the market. In 2018, 47.74 million pieces were sold, with an income of 662 million yuan. In 2023, the sales volume will exceed 100 million pieces, and the sales revenue will be close to 1.3 billion yuan.
Since then, in various public activities, Li Chuyuan has always relied on controversy to get out of the circle.
At the 2021 Boao Economic Forum, he promoted the company's Banlangen products at the right time, claiming that he didn't need to wear a mask once he drank it. For a time, Banlangen became a must-stock "miracle medicine" for all families.
He dared to speak ruthlessly, and he also dared to smash real money. From 2021 to 2023, the company's sales expenses will be 5.955 billion yuan, 5.875 billion yuan and 6.105 billion yuan respectively. In the past three years, the total advertising expenditure alone has reached 3.097 billion yuan.
However, the company's R&D investment is not high, and in the above three years, the R&D investment was 875 million yuan, 819 million yuan and 782 million yuan respectively, and the proportion of revenue did not exceed 2%.
03
Post-Li Chuyuan era
After Li Chuyuan's resignation, Yang Jun, vice chairman of the company, temporarily performed his duties until the new chairman was elected.
Yang Jun is an old partner of Li Chuyuan, who has served as a director of Baiyunshan since January 2020 and was promoted to vice chairman in June of that year.
The "exit" of the core figure Li Chuyuan, the personnel structure of Baiyun Mountain has undergone major changes, and it is very likely that it will usher in a heavy adjustment in personnel in the future.
In the future, no matter who takes the helm of Baiyun Mountain, the first thing to face is the company's growth problem.
Wang Laoji, Banlangen and Jin Ge, the products that once made the company infinitely beautiful, are facing the test of recession.
In special periods, Banlangen can always find a flashpoint. SARS, influenza A, avian influenza...... Without exception. However, Banlangen Injection has been required by relevant departments to add warning signs for adverse reactions such as shock;
After many years of fierce war between Wang Laoji and Jia Duo Bao, although the sales scale of Wang Laoji Health Company rebounded to 10 billion yuan last year, the herbal tea industry as a whole has not increased, and the ceiling is close at hand;
The male drug market that Jinge seized in advance is also being challenged by many parties. At present, no less than 20 domestic manufacturers have obtained approval for the production of similar drugs, especially Qilu Pharmaceutical, which has launched similar products of sildenafil citrate tablets, which is challenging Jinge's market dominance at ultra-low prices.
In recent years, Baiyun Mountain has continued to have internal problems, its inflated drug prices, arbitrage funds have been investigated, and nearly 100 products have been withdrawn from the network by many provinces. There is also the failure of the company's spin-off Guangzhou Pharmaceutical to go public, and Kangmei Pharmaceutical, which took over, is also a huge sinkhole.
Under the superposition of various factors, the performance growth rate of Baiyunshan has slowed down sharply. The growth rate of its net profit attributable to the parent company has dropped from 27.60% in 2021 to 2.25% last year.
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