Measures for cash management of private enterprises

At present, in the third wave of strategic transformation of Chinese enterprises, enterprises are more likely to occupy more market share through horizontal mergers and acquisitions, but mergers and acquisitions are not easy for enterprises, and they may fall into a financial black hole if they are not careful. Obviously, it is very important for enterprises to control cash flow. The investment strategies of Li Ka-shing and Guo Guangchang are based on ensuring good cash flow.

The purpose of cash management is to save cash as much as possible, reduce cash holdings, and invest idle cash in order to obtain more investment income while ensuring the cash needed for production and business activities of enterprises. In other words, enterprises should find a balance between reducing risks and increasing profits to determine the best cash flow.

So, how can we control the cash flow of enterprises? One of the basic principles is to have a stable income first. Without stable income, it is impossible to manage cash well. So how can we get a stable income? The achievement of stable income starts from reducing risks, and Li Ka-shing's investment strategy is exemplary in this respect.

Enterprises with different investment return periods

Li Ka-shing's thinking is that different businesses have different payback periods and different sensitivities to the current economic situation. Generally speaking, enterprises with short payback period are very sensitive to the current economic situation. The advantage of these businesses is that when the economy is good, they seize the opportunity to obtain relatively rich profits, and the cash flow is relatively continuous, such as retail and hotels. Usually, businesses with long return cycles are less affected by the current economic situation. The advantage of these businesses is stable income, but the capital investment is relatively large, such as infrastructure and electricity.

If the company's business is mostly short-term, the profit will fluctuate greatly. If most of the company's business is long-term, the return of funds will be slow, and because of the huge capital investment, it is prone to the risk of poor capital turnover. The most ideal thing is to combine the businesses with different return periods to realize the risk dispersion during the return period. Different businesses of Changhe Department have different payback periods, which ensures that there is enough capital return at each time point to provide funds for businesses with long payback periods.

Through the acquisition of stable return business, the fluctuation range of profits can also be reduced, thus achieving the effect of smoothing profits. In addition, the stable return project also has its strategic side, such as providing stable cash flow, contributing to the development of other businesses of the Group, and reducing the probability of financial or capital difficulties when encountering difficulties.

Invest in enterprises in different regions

Moreover, in order to obtain stable investment income, in Li Ka-shing's investment strategy arrangement, he adopted the way of investing in the same business in different regions. For example, Hutchison Whampoa's container terminal business: Hutchison Whampoa 1977 has always regarded container terminals as the highlight of business development. Since the early 1990s, this business has been expanding overseas. 199 1 year, the group acquired the busiest port in Britain, the port of Feliston, and took the first step of global expansion.

In the following years, Hutchison Whampoa expanded its container terminal business to different strategic geographical locations around the world, including 65,438+05 countries and regions in China, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe and America. At present, Hutchison Whampoa operates 30 ports around the world, with *** 169 berths. According to the annual report of Hutchison 1995-200 1, the business income of container terminals has been growing steadily in recent years.

The total revenue of container terminal business can maintain steady growth, mainly because its port business is scattered in different regions. No matter what economic environment the group faces, the ports are affected to varying degrees. Therefore, in different periods, areas with good performance and rapid profit growth can often support areas with relatively poor performance, slow profit growth or even negative growth, so that the overall profit of terminal business always maintains positive growth.

Invest by way of capital increase.

Li Ka-shing's investment is exemplary, and the practices of some domestic enterprises are also worth learning. Fosun Group is an example. In recent years, Guo Guangchang and his "Multiple Galaxies" have revealed the most imaginative operation mode: they are engaged in industry integration, and the scope of company investment and acquisition covers biopharmaceuticals, real estate, information industry, trade and circulation, finance, steel, automobiles and other fields, with more than 100 companies holding shares directly and indirectly. The core of Fosun investment is the balance of cash flow.

How does Fosun control cash flow? "We advocate capital increase, not transfer, because the cash flow of capital increase is in our system." Wang Qunbin, general manager of Fosun Industrial, said.

In 2003, Fosun made a huge tender offer to acquire "Nangang Shares" (600282), which showed its superb skills in controlling cash flow. To put it simply, this acquisition means that Fosun makes money, Nangang Group makes assets, and the two sides set up a joint venture company, which is controlled by Fosun. Then through capital increase, the joint venture company acquired "Nangang shares". After this arrangement, the acquisition funds are still in the hands of Fosun.

In order to alleviate the pressure of capital contribution, Fosun adopted a two-step approach of "establishing first, then increasing capital". In the first step, three affiliated companies of Fosun invested 600 million yuan in cash, and Nangang Group invested 400 million yuan in some operating assets to establish a joint venture company "Nangang United". The second step is to increase capital in the same proportion. Fosun still increased its capital with cash, and Nangang Group increased its capital with Nangang's equity.

Invest by holding.

In addition to advocating capital increase and acquisition, Fosun has another proposition, that is, holding. Take the acquisition of Nangang as an example: the capital increase of Nangang Group's "Nangang Shares" needs government approval. Approval takes time, and the joint venture company established in advance is controlled by Fosun, so the cash required for Fosun's second capital increase can be realized through various financing arrangements. In addition, according to the joint venture agreement, Fosun needs to pay RMB 2,654,380+0,000 in advance for capital increase and acquisition of Nangang United. Together with the 600 million yuan invested by the joint venture company in advance, Fosun invested 8 1 10,000 yuan to achieve the acquisition purpose, and as the controlling shareholder, this 8 1 10,000 yuan is still under the control of Fosun.

The final registered capital of the joint venture company is 2.75 billion yuan, of which 60% is 65.438+65 billion yuan. In this way, a joint venture plan with a capital contribution of 654.38+0.65 billion yuan can be realized with an initial capital contribution of 865.438+0 billion yuan under careful arrangement.

According to the conventional thinking, 60% of the shares of Nangang are often acquired directly, and if calculated according to the net assets of Nangang at the end of 2002 of 65.438+0.74253 million yuan, it means that more than 65.438+0 billion yuan of cash will immediately flow out of Fosun Group. Moreover, the balance of monetary funds of Nangang at the end of 2002 was as high as 900 million yuan. This greatly reduced the financing pressure of Fosun, because the balance of monetary funds of Fosun Group at the end of 2002 was only 654.38+0.2 billion yuan.

Industry strategy of cash flow

As mentioned above, the cash flow of retail and hotel industries is relatively continuous, which is also a good investment choice. Specifically, this is an industry strategy to control cash flow. In recent years, some powerful large enterprises have invested in the circulation industry for cash flow. Liu Yonghao, president of New Hope Group, said frankly: One of the reasons why New Hope entered the circulation industry is that the retail industry has sustained cash flow. Moreover, in the strategic map of Fosun's industry, the field of commercial circulation is also of great strategic significance to Fosun. Fosun's Lianhua Supermarket, Yuyuan Mall and chain pharmacies are all over the country, with retail sales of 20 billion. According to domestic practice, there will be at least 3 to 4 months, and about 6 billion suppliers' funds can be extended.

In addition, there are some special industries with abundant cash flow, such as tourism. Delong regards tourism as a leading industry to develop. In addition to the rich advantages of tourism resources in Xinjiang, he is optimistic about the operation mode of tourism. As a person in charge of Delong said: "The biggest reason why Delong entered the travel agency industry is that the profit model of this industry is different from any other industry. Other industries invest first and then collect money, and domestic and foreign tourism businesses organized by travel agencies collect money first and then do things. " This time lag of funds can provide a broad space for enterprise operation.