Yangcheng Evening News reporter Huang Ting

　　Recently, the arrears disputes between Gome and Whirlpool have attracted much attention.

In Gome's statement, the war was directed to Galanz, the controlling shareholder of Whirlpool, saying that Galanz was forcing the company to subsidize unreasonable expenses and intended to solve the problem through Whirlpool's troubles.

　　As the contradictions became public, Whirlpool's over 80 million yuan accounts receivable from Gome also surfaced, and everyone's focus turned to the company's operating performance.

In the first year of Galanz's "ownership", the transcripts submitted by Whirlpool were not good-looking, and the loss increased by 293.41% year-on-year; while Galanz, which once pointed to a revenue of 100 billion yuan, has maintained its performance over the years, and its revenue has remained unchanged. Has been hovering at more than 20 billion yuan.

　　The first annual report after entering the company still has no improvement

　　Whirlpool (China) is headquartered in Hefei, Anhui Province. Its parent company, Whirlpool, was founded in 1911 and is the largest white goods brand in the United States. It entered the Chinese market in 1994.

In 2014, Hefei Sanyo was acquired by Whirlpool, and since then it has become a Sino-foreign joint venture. At that time, there were brands such as Sanyo, Whirlpool, Didu and Rongshida.

　　From 2020 to 2021, Galanz, a home appliance company in Foshan, Guangdong, spent about 2.048 billion yuan to complete the acquisition of Whirlpool China and became its controlling shareholder.

The latest equity distribution of Whirlpool is that Galanz holds 57.11% of the shares, Whirlpool (China) holds 19.9% ​​of the shares, and Hefei State-owned Assets holds 3.34% of the shares.

　　In March 2021, Liang Huiqiang, vice chairman of Galanz Group, said: "We will not look at the short-term financial performance of this company in the past one or two years, but look at synergies and potential value in our tender offer. Washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators and other categories have a very strong technical background, and there will be a strong industrial synergy with Galanz in this regard, which is the reason for our acquisition."

　　However, after Galanz took over, the first annual report transcript handed over by Whirlpool has not improved.

On April 21, Whirlpool disclosed its 2021 annual report.

According to the report, the company achieved operating income of 4.931 billion yuan in 2021, a year-on-year decrease of 0.26%; a net loss of 589 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 293.41%.

　　According to financial reports over the years, Whirlpool has experienced three consecutive years of declining revenue and widening net losses.

Regarding the reasons for the decline in revenue, the financial report explained that, affected by the withdrawal of the Sanyo brand in 2020, the products of the Sanyo brand (Japanese brand, authorized to operate by Whirlpool) with a higher proportion of the original revenue were completely withdrawn in April 2020, and the domestic market demand decreased. and factors that have a greater impact on the epidemic.

In 2021, after Galanz became the actual controller, the dual-brand strategy of "Whirlpool + Dido" was determined. In 2021, the operating income will be basically the same as that of the same period last year, and the export business will maintain a stable growth trend.

　　Revenue has not exceeded 30 billion yuan

　　In March 2020, Galanz's official website published an article saying that it was the first year of Galanz's transformation as a technology enterprise, and it would turn to integrated circuits, chip design, edge computing and other fields, and clearly hoped that the revenue would reach 1,000 in the next three to five years. The scale of 100 million yuan has entered the world's top 500.

　　Galanz's expansion ambitions are not only reflected in the acquisition of Whirlpool.

In the same year as the acquisition of Whirlpool, Galanz also became the single largest shareholder of Zojirushi, a well-known consumer appliance company in Japan. The latter is headquartered in Osaka, Japan, and mainly produces and sells thermos, rice cookers, and electric kettles.

At the beginning of 2020, Galanz also established Guangdong Yuefang Technology Co., Ltd. to enter the field of home appliance IoT chips, and announced with a high profile that it plans to invest 10 billion yuan to build an intelligent manufacturing demonstration base for Industry 4.0 smart home appliances.

　　The reason why the acquisition of Galanz and Whirlpool has attracted much attention is also that Galanz, which has been reluctant to go public, seems to be taking this opportunity to approach the capital market, and through mergers and acquisitions to achieve expansion, improve corporate governance, and get rid of the conservative impression of being a family business. 100 billion yuan in revenue issued a sprint.

　　Since its establishment in 1978, Galanz has experienced three generations of Liang Qingde, Liang Zhaoxian and Liang Huiqiang.

Liang Huiqiang is a post-95s generation. Many years ago, he entered the Galanz workshop and department as a rotating trainee when he was still in college.

Galanz also intends to strengthen the training of Liang Huiqiang. He went to Japan Zojirushi Magic Bottle Company to attend a meeting, nominated an independent director to the board of directors, and accepted interviews with Japanese media; he will make his public debut as the president of Whirlpool (China) in May 2021.

　　"The capital market is not Galanz's goal, but one of the many means to achieve growth and development." In the face of rumors that Galanz is going to "backdoor" listing, Liang Huiqiang said in an interview last year.

　　Before and after Galanz's holding, Whirlpool's personnel oscillated constantly.

Ai Xiaoming, the former president of the company, submitted his resignation in April 2021; in August 2021, Wei Gang, vice president of manufacturing, resigned; Fang Bin, the secretary of the board of directors, also submitted a resignation report at the same time.

Analysts said that Galanz is a company known for its strict cost management. After its holding, the salaries of Whirlpool's management and R&D personnel have been greatly reduced, resulting in a large loss of talents.

　　It is worth noting that Galanz, known as the "King of Microwave Ovens", has kept its revenue level in recent years.

According to the 2021 Top 500 Private Enterprises in China, Galanz ranked 464th with a revenue of 24.646 billion yuan. As early as 2006, Galanz's executives announced that the company's sales would exceed 20 billion yuan in that year.

16 years later, Galanz's revenue still cannot exceed 30 billion yuan.