Home appliance expert Liu Budust said: "Since Huang Guangyu's incident, Gome did indeed go through a period of pain. In general, if an enterprise encounters such a big event, it may suffer serious setbacks or even go bankrupt. But Gome has made it through and its performance has improved somewhat. The future is still promising."
In the blink of an eye, Huang Guangyu has been in prison for a year. During this year, from the "change of ownership" of Gome to the entry of Bain Capital, all these events have pushed Gome to the forefront.
Among all the actions taken by Gome this year, the most controversial one was the introduction of Bain Capital. Financial report data shows that in the first three quarters, Gome achieved sales revenue of 31.43 billion yuan, an increase of 2.85% quarter-on-quarter; the operating profit margin continued to recover steadily, rising from 3.28% in the first two quarters of this year to 4.44% in the third quarter; the comprehensive gross profit margin increased from 16.75% in the same period last year to 16.83%.
Regarding this, Fang Wei, acting CFO of Gome, stated that the reduction in sales revenue in the first three quarters was mainly due to the implementation of network optimization strategies and the weak macroeconomic environment in the first quarter, which led to a decrease in the total number of stores. In addition, the closure of inefficient stores and large expenses such as stock option fees had an adverse impact on profits.
Senior director of Paler Consulting Luo Qingqi said: "Actually, we cannot simply compare the reduction in profit amounts, as part of it is returned to suppliers. This way, the relationship with suppliers will be more harmonious, laying a foundation for good cooperation in the future. After experiencing turbulence, Gome can still deliver such results, which is not bad."
On this year's Hurun Rich List, Zhang Jindong, chairman of Suning Appliances, ranked higher than Huang Guangyu. This wealth competition might also imply deeper significance.
Without Huang Guangyu for a year
From the perspective of store numbers, as of the end of September, Gome closed 158 stores, resulting in a net reduction of 117 stores compared to 859 at the end of 2008, leaving a total of 742 stores (excluding Yongle and Dazhong). According to Gome, the cost loss in this area is estimated to be around 1.2 billion yuan.
However, during the New Year's Day period in 2009, the relationship between Gome and its suppliers once became tense, even leading to situations where there were no goods available for sale in the stores. This forced Gome, accustomed to being "arrogant," to lower its stance and mend fences with suppliers.
Behind these complex appearances, people are more concerned about Gome's performance, and more importantly, how far Gome can go without Huang Guangyu?
Excluding the influence of the financial crisis, Gome itself also faces many unfavorable factors.
On November 18th, in the No. 1 meeting room on the 18th floor of Beijing Pengrun Building, Gome held a senior management meeting and announced its Q3 financial report.
Seven days after Huang Guangyu was imprisoned, Gome established a "Special Action Committee" to handle the impact of the Huang Guangyu incident on Gome's financial condition and operations.
The Q3 report is not optimistic
After a year under the leadership of Chairman Chen Xiao, Gome is still not in a very optimistic situation after Huang Guangyu's imprisonment.
It is understood that the initial uncertainty surrounding Bain Capital's investment once led the market to speculate whether it would threaten Huang Guangyu's status as the largest shareholder, possibly causing Gome to "change its name." All of this finally settled down when Huang Guangyu fully subscribed to the shares, and Bain became Gome's second-largest shareholder with a 3.2 billion HKD investment.
However, under the same macroeconomic conditions, Suning's performance has been steadily improving. Suning's previously announced Q3 financial report showed that in the first three quarters, Suning's sales revenue reached 40.614 billion yuan, increasing by 6.97% year-on-year. Net profit was 1.97 billion yuan, up 15.06% year-on-year.
Additionally, Fang Wei emphasized twice during the release of the financial report that since last year's "Golden Week" started on September 29th, the sales figures for September 29th and 30th last year were included in the Q3 financial report. This is also one of the reasons for the decrease in sales in Q3 this year.
But despite the sequential recovery in data, the sales revenue in the first three quarters of 31.43 billion yuan still fell by 13.65% year-on-year. Net profit dropped nearly 40%, falling to 965 million yuan.
Whether it's Chen Xiao far away in Hong Kong or Gome vice presidents Wang Junzhou, Wei Qiuli, He Yangqing, etc., present in the meeting room, they all expressed satisfaction with this financial report. Chen Xiao said: "This shows that our transformation work over the past year has been successful."
After resolving the supplier issues, Gome began planning its transformation, shifting from large-scale stores to improving single-store profit margins.
Gome, plagued by internal and external problems, gave the impression this year of being unstable.
"From the perspective of listed companies, Gome's sales and profit margins are indeed not as good as Suning's, and its single-store profit is also lower than Suning's. However, if you include the unlisted parts, Gome still has certain advantages," said Liu Budust.