Brilliance, a brand with no sense of existence in the independent camp at present, was once the first independent automobile enterprise in Northeast China. As early as 1992, when the CSRC was not established and the company law was still under discussion, it went public in the United States and became the "first share in China".

Now, during the Guangzhou Auto Show in 2020, the news of bankruptcy and reorganization of Brilliance Group spread all over the network. Some people boarded the booth in black and pink, and some people collapsed. The excitement and cruelty of the automobile rivers and lakes can't help but make people sad.

165438+1On October 20th, Shenyang Intermediate People's Court ruled that it would accept the creditor's reorganization application of Brilliance Automobile Group Holding Co., Ltd., which means that this automobile enterprise officially entered the bankruptcy reorganization procedure. Previously, Brilliance Group triggered a discussion on the Internet because of its debt default of 6.5 billion yuan. In the past, Brilliance Group basically relied on bank credit to continue its life. This time, it was unable to repay its debts because it failed the examination and approval. In other words, the government and banks are already dissatisfied with this black hole.

The semi-annual bond report of Brilliance Automobile Group in 2020 shows that the total debt of the group is 132844 billion yuan, and after deducting goodwill and intangible assets, the asset-liability ratio is 7 1.4%. The ending balance of cash and cash equivalents was 32.677 billion yuan. Brilliance Group's semi-annual report this year shows that the total liabilities at the group level are 52.376 billion yuan, and the asset-liability ratio exceeds 65,438+065,438+00%, obviously losing its financing ability.

Brilliance Group went bankrupt, and many people are concerned about the influence of BMW Brilliance, so they can rest assured. In essence, these two companies are independent legal persons. Brilliance Group said that this restructuring only involves the independent brand sector of the group headquarters, and does not involve listed companies under the group and joint ventures with BMW and Renault. BMW Brilliance also put aside the relationship between the speed of light, indicating that I am still me, a Bavarian fireworks with different colors.

Over the years, Brilliance Group has been showing the situation of "strong son and weak mother". Even if BMW, a cash cow, continues to transfuse blood, it can't stop all the staff of its own brand. In addition, the share ratio between Brilliance and BMW used to be 50:50, but now it is 25:75, which directly affects the revenue of Brilliance.

As the first company listed in the United States, Brilliance's early operation was excellent. If you are born in the 1980s, you must have seen and even driven several cars in the back.

Jinbei bus, which is deeply loved by old drivers, was a magic car in the hearts of users before the advent of GL8.

The above Jinbei may be too old, and the following Jinbei "New Sea Lion" is believed to be more familiar after 1980s, which completely opened up the situation for Brilliance at that time and occupied the first position in sales for a long time. At its peak, relying on "New Sea Lion", Huachen's annual revenue reached 7 billion yuan, and its profit was second only to SAIC Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen. Today, there are many sea lions running on the road.

Brilliance also appeared on the verge of bankruptcy in 2003, and then relied on the price war strategy to get Brilliance out of the quagmire. Zunchi and Jie Jun were the main players in the price war. Although the product strength was not as good as that of the mid-size joint venture car in the same period, Zunchi and Jie Jun did have a good cost performance at that time, especially Jie Jun, which was equipped with the first turbocharged gasoline engine of its own brand, and even exported many models to Germany and launched the Jie Jun Travel Edition, which is rare in the history of its own brand. It can be said that for a long time, Brilliance relied on Jie Jun to make a living.

After Jie Jun, Brilliance didn't sell well, but it launched a sports car, Zhonghua Kubao, which impressed many people in China. It was designed by a well-known design company, Pennsylvania. Although the sales volume is average, it can reflect some pursuits of brilliance by automobile manufacturing in that era.

Now Brilliance's three cards, Zhonghua, Song Hua and Jinbei, have almost completely collapsed and have no strength to compete with their opponents. From 20 17 to 20 19, the sales volume of brilliance China was 102300, 80000 and 25 1000 respectively, showing a downward trend year by year, and it was only a matter of time before it was forgotten by the market. It is said that the Song Hua 7, which cost 2.7 billion yuan to build, was very arrogant when it went on the market. Buick GL8, known as the benchmark, is embarrassed to see today's sales.

Brilliance Auto debuted very early and achieved excellent results. In addition, the joint venture partner BMW continued to transfuse blood. Why didn't you continue to grow and become another Geely? Let's make a comeback

Key figures leave a "brilliant maze"

The early glory of Brilliance was created by a businessman named Yang Rong. 1988, there was no glory at that time. Only one state-owned enterprise named Jinbei Automobile, Yang Rong, bought 40% shares of Jinbei Automobile at 199 1, which was expanded to 5 1% through share exchange and became the actual controller of the company. After successful listing through some operations, Yang Rong began to enter the automotive field. His financial talent enabled Brilliance to penetrate into various industries through a series of capital operations in the development process, creating an empire including five listed companies and 158 affiliated companies, which is called "Brilliance Maze".

200 1 Liaoning officialdom changed dramatically, and the government resources on which Yang Rong depended became empty overnight. He didn't have the patience to reorganize the relationship between politics and business, and planned to gradually transfer Brilliance's investment strategy to Zhejiang, but the Liaoning provincial government obviously wouldn't let Brilliance go, and finally Yang Rong was fired. After Yang Rong was kicked out, Brilliance was weakened, leaving a maze that no one could solve, and the sales volume dropped significantly. By the end of 2005, Brilliance executives had changed four times in more than three years.

Ignoring independent research and development, product strength can't keep up with the times.

After Yang Rong left, Brilliance fell into chaos, leaving only the wages paid to employees and 1 100 million yuan owed to suppliers. At this time, another key figure appeared, that is, Qi Yumin, chairman of Brilliance Holdings and former deputy mayor of Dalian, who took office in 2006. He first borrowed 700 million yuan from the bank, then planned a price war for mid-level cars, and reduced the price of Zunchi by 40,000 yuan. At the same time, the new model Jie Jun was off the assembly line seven months ahead of schedule, and the price was below 6,543,800 yuan. This series of actions was immediate, and the sales volume climbed all the way, pulling Brilliance back from the death line.

However, Qi Yumin has always neglected the research and development of independent technology. He once said, "I dream of having a product. Its chassis is adjusted by Porsche, its appearance and interior and exterior decorations are made in Italy, and its engine is in cooperation with BMW. Once the three resources are integrated, is it a good car? " This simple thinking of building a car led Brilliance Auto to fail to establish a positive R&D system for a long time in the past, and let BMW "give away" outdated technology blindly. BMW gave Brilliance a pair of wings, but it didn't learn to fly after all.

With the departure of the core team, Brilliance under BMW's aura is fading.

During the turbulent period, many core members of Brilliance technical team left their jobs, such as Zhao Fuquan, who was in charge of R&D in brilliance jinbei, went to Geely, Bai Yang, who was in charge of sales, went to Chery, and Liu Zhigang, vice president, took a large number of employees to BYD. The loss of these personnel has kept Brilliance in a state for a long time, which is directly related to the poor performance of subsequent products.

In addition, BMW Brilliance is a big taxpayer in Shenyang, creating nearly 20,000 jobs, second only to FAW-Volkswagen in Northeast China. At the same time, there are nearly 100 BMW parts suppliers in Liaoning province, and a very perfect industrial chain has been established. Therefore, the Liaoning government is bound to fully support BMW. In any case, Liaoning can't lose to BMW, which makes Brilliance in a weak position in the dialogue with BMW. The latter, of course.

Write it at the end

It took Brilliance less than 20 years to complete the process from a leading wholly-owned state-owned enterprise, with more than 100 affiliated enterprises and total assets exceeding 30 billion, to successive years of losses and finally bankruptcy and reorganization. As taxpayers, I believe everyone is very sad. The monster collapsed. After bankruptcy, all the loans of the bank are basically bad debts. How to reorganize them later? Who will accept this proposal? Where will a large number of employees go? These are all problems that need to be solved urgently. The joint venture system in China's automobile industry has spawned a number of independent automobile enterprises that lie down to make money but ignore their own development. Without core competitiveness, with the increase of equity ratio of foreign brands, their underwear will be exposed sooner or later Then the question is, how many independent brands do we have like Brilliance?

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.