Who knows the inside story of bankruptcy liquidation of Lanshili Company?

If we compare East Star Airlines to a building, the financial crisis that came in 2008 is an earthquake. In this sudden earthquake, the building of East Star Airlines was flattened. It was discovered that this was originally a "bean curd residue" project. ...

20 10/0,2065438+00, Wuhan Intermediate People's Court made a ruling to terminate the bankruptcy liquidation procedure of East Star Airlines, and East Star Airlines disappeared.

However, the right and wrong surrounding the bankruptcy of East Star Airlines has not subsided. East Star Airlines grounded, reorganized, went bankrupt and liquidated, and Lan Shili was sentenced. Still arguing and questioning.

Through liquidation and dust removal, the truth came out.

Is the equity restructuring between East Star Airlines and AVIC an "alliance under the city"?

In Lan Shili's narrative, the breakdown of his cooperation with AVIC was due to the "unequal treaty" of the government-led "alliance under the city", which aroused his strong resistance.

But the objective fact is that Lan Shili took the initiative to throw an olive branch and then directed his own "face change".

Before East Star Airlines was besieged by debts, negotiations with Goldman Sachs broke down, leaving Lan in a dilemma.

In the second half of 2008, when American General Electric Commercial Aviation Service Co., Ltd. (GECAS for short) wanted to detain its leased aircraft because East Star Airlines was in arrears with rent, Lan Shili was impatient. Before that, he used many methods to attract funds to maintain the operation of East Star Airlines.

In 2003, the Optical Valley Central Garden, built by Dongsheng Real Estate Company under the former Lan Shili, later became the largest uncompleted residential building in the south of Wuhan. At that time, Jiangnan Sub-branch of Agricultural Bank of Hubei Province issued a loan of 654.38 billion yuan to Dongsheng in 2006. Later, it was found that East Star Airlines spent 90 million yuan, and because the mortgage was not operated by ABC, it was difficult to recover the loan. All nine responsible persons of ABC were dismissed or transferred, and Lan Shili was imprisoned for some time.

In February 2008, Lan Shili set off a so-called "whirlwind of falling house prices" in Wuhan, and the original price of the second phase residential building in Optics Valley Center dropped to 6,000 yuan/square meter. He threw out the "theory of profiteering in housing prices" and said that he would be the "fuse of avalanche" in Wuhan's housing prices! At that time, the media in Wuhan reported a lot.

Lan Shili, who is under great financial pressure, wants to cash out the real estate immediately. So the shops and houses in Optics Valley Central Garden were sold by one room, two rooms or even more. These cases were not completely closed when Lan Shili was sentenced to prison.

According to Liu Jin, a lawyer of Wuhan Yisichuang Law Firm who contacted these cases, there were 203 cases of disputes over the sale of one room, repeated mortgage disputes, arrears of project funds and so on, and the litigation amount was as high as 322 million.

A bank official said that after this incident, no one in Wuhan banking was willing to borrow money from Lan.

The bankruptcy of East Star Airlines proves this point. The reporter was informed that the bank loans owed by East Star are very few and the bank's reputation is not good, which can be regarded as one of the most important reasons for the final bankruptcy of East Star Airlines.

East Star International Travel Service is Lan Shili's signature. In recent years, you can always see green tourist buses with the logo of East Star International Travel Service on the streets of Wuhan. Since operating aviation, Lan Shili has taken money from China Travel Agency to invest in East Star Airlines.

According to the bankruptcy administrator, when reviewing the creditor's rights at that time, the administrator was also puzzled. She once asked a Wang Xing financial executive of Dongxing Group at that time, and she responded like this: "I told him (Lan Shili) that this would not work, so the business trip would be ruined." Lan Shili won't listen, and CITS has been "transfused" into the aviation industry.

From June to February, 2008, Lan Shili went to Beijing and proposed to AVIC to join AVIC through acquisition and merger. At this point, East Star Airlines is indeed heavily in debt and unsustainable.

According to the records of Zhou Zhiyu, Deputy Inspector of Wuhan Municipal Communications Commission, on June 5438+February1KLOC-0/,2008, AVIC wrote to the Hubei Provincial Government, indicating that it planned to reorganize East Star Airlines at the request of its shareholders. The provincial people's government approved the reorganization of East Star Airlines by China Airlines Group.

On June 7, 2009, 65438, AVIC signed a letter of intent for restructuring with East Star Airlines. Subsequently, AVIC launched an active acquisition: AVIC leaders presided over several meetings to study and reorganize East Star Airlines; Set up an asset acquisition group and an operation takeover group to work in Wuhan; Hired accounting firms, asset appraisal institutions and law firms, and organized a team of more than 50 people to conduct due diligence in Wuhan; On the eve of the Spring Festival, 50 million yuan was transferred to Han's name to pay employees' salaries and repay some emergency debts of East Star Airlines.

However, after AVIC paid 50 million yuan in advance, Lan Shili's attitude changed immediately, due diligence set many obstacles, and the restructuring work progressed slowly. Faced with this situation, AVIC has repeatedly reported to provincial and municipal leaders, demanding that the restructuring work be coordinated and promoted.

On February 8, 2009, the municipal government set up a special class to coordinate and promote the restructuring work: First, coordinate the special affairs offices of relevant departments of provinces and cities, and properly handle issues such as East Star Airlines equity pledge and account seizure; The second is to coordinate the contradictions and problems arising from the reorganization of AVIC and East Star Airlines; The third is to properly solve the problem of pilot salary recovery and stability.

Why did Lan Shili suddenly turn his face? Jason, the bankruptcy administrator and lawyer of Hubei law firm, gave the answer: Lan just wanted to obtain funds through restructuring, because he could not obtain funds through banks.

Lan found an excuse to turn his face and deliberately put forward conditions that the government could not meet at high prices.

On March 1 1, Fan Cheng, deputy general manager of Air China, came to Korea to make overall arrangements for receiving East Star Airlines. 13, Lan Shili suddenly proposed four conditions involving land development to the municipal government (including handing over Ximachang Street at the foot of Guishan Mountain in Wuhan to Dongxing for development, with a plot ratio of more than 4; Allocate 300 mu of Dongxing for real estate development at a low price of 200,000 yuan per mu), and the local government flatly rejected these requests, on the grounds that Guishan Scenic Area is not allowed to build high-density buildings, and according to state regulations, any land transaction involving real estate development needs to be publicly invited, auctioned and hanged. Lan Shili immediately refused to sign the reorganization agreement.

That night, Lan Shili unilaterally published a "solemn statement refusing to cooperate with AVIC" on the website, accusing AVIC of forcibly acquiring East Star Airlines under government intervention. At this point, the restructuring work was forced to stop.

Why did Lan Shili run away in secret?

Lan Shili is a citizen of Singapore and can enter and leave the country normally according to law, but why did Lan Shili leave the country secretly? Bankruptcy administrator Peng analyzed that he actually left the mess to the local government by secretly leaving, thus threatening the government to meet his four conditions.

At that time, Lan Shili had received 50 million yuan in advance from AVIC, which was the money that AVIC asked Lan Shili to pay in advance to employees. However, after Lan Shili got the money, he played "evaporation". At this time, Air China has more than 50 people in Wu Hanyou, but no one in Lanzhou can be found. The work class called Lan countless times, either turning off the phone or transferring it to the secretary to pick it up, but he never showed up.

In addition, at that time, East Star had pre-sold tickets to nearly 30,000 passengers. If he leaves, the local government will clean up the mess and pay for East Star Airlines.

Zhou Zhiyu is the main coordinator of the follow-up work. He introduced that on the evening of March 14, after the grounding of East Star Airlines, with the approval of the Civil Aviation Administration of China and the coordination of Hubei Safety Supervision Bureau of Civil Aviation, 8.5 planes were mobilized from four airlines including Air China, China Southern Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines and Hainan Airlines overnight, and 48 flights of East Star Airlines were carried out every day for five days (later, some flights with large passenger traffic were carried out), and 20 flights were organized by * *. The special class starts the refund work for passengers who have sold their tickets after March 20, and organizes airlines operating in China to sign and transfer a few passengers who refuse to refund. * * * There were 9,688 refund passengers and 2,607 transit passengers.

On the morning of March 4th 1 1, Lan Shili broke through Zhuhai and tried to leave the country. He was found by border guards and informed the Wuhan police to take him back to Wuhan.

Afterwards, the leader of China Airlines Group said angrily: "Lan Shili kidnapped the government through huge debts and public security, which is an obvious fraud."

Ground at midnight

During the Spring Festival this year, East Star Group filed an administrative lawsuit in Guangzhou Baiyun District Court, requesting that the administrative action of grounding East Star Airlines made by the Central and South Bureau of Civil Aviation be invalidated.

"For the time being, regardless of the plaintiff qualification of East Star Group, if it keeps flying, there is no guarantee of safety. It is an act responsible for public safety. " Zhou Zhiyu said.

During the debt crisis of East Star Airlines, from June 2008 10 to March 9, 2009, East Star Airlines owed GECAS aircraft rent totaling 74 12 16000 yuan. Lan Shili ignored several reminders from the company; After the company issued a grounding notice to East Star Airlines, Lan Shili still ignored it. After repeated reminders, GECAS formally submitted a diplomatic note to the government of China and reported this serious breach of contract to the relevant departments. In February 2008, GECAS applied to Wuhan Intermediate People's Court for bankruptcy liquidation of East Star Airlines.

At this time, East Star Airlines stopped paying the flying hours of pilots and flight attendants from June 5438+February 2008, and stopped paying the salaries of all employees from June 5438+2009 10. As of March 3, 2009, employees had not been paid for 2-3 months. Some employees have left East Star Airlines one after another, and the on-the-job employees are extremely unstable.

After Lan Shili played "into thin air", Wang Zailan, the company's legal representative and executive deputy general manager, persuaded him not to work in the company, and forced the general manager to leave his job to rest on the grounds of illness.

At this time, the key aviation materials of East Star Airlines are extremely short. Of the nine leased aircraft, eight were put into normal operation and the other was parked on the tarmac. Once another plane breaks down, the parts will be removed from this plane, and the main parts have been basically removed.

Lan Shili also divided the crew members into obedient and disobedient categories according to personal preferences, and randomly deployed pilots, disrupting the original captain and co-pilot, resulting in the lack of personnel in key positions of flight safety, which greatly affected flight safety. These have aroused the serious concern of the Civil Aviation Administration and the Central South Administration for flight safety.

In 2009, when the bankruptcy administrator answered a reporter's question, he said that the municipal government did not want to see East Star Airlines go bankrupt and had been working for GECAS, which filed for bankruptcy through the court. When GECAS saw that the reorganization was difficult and there was no hope of continuing to perform the aircraft leasing agreement, it applied to Wuhan Intermediate People's Court for bankruptcy liquidation of East Star Airlines again on March 10, 2009, which was also an important reason.

According to the audit conducted by Ernst & Young during the restructuring negotiations, East Star Airlines lost 500 million yuan, owed 47.706 million yuan in taxes, and even withheld personal income tax paid by pilots and employees as of February 3, 2008.

Lan Shili's "statement" and his attempt to break through the customs shocked the leading group in Wuhan. On the morning of March 14, the municipal party committee and municipal government held a special meeting to seriously evaluate the aviation safety of East Star. In order to avoid aviation safety accidents, an emergency report was sent to the Central South Bureau of Civil Aviation. The latter was evaluated and reported to the National Civil Aviation Administration for approval, and the flight operation license of East Star Airlines was suspended from 0: 00 on March 15.

Bankruptcy is the last choice.

Why not reorganize and choose bankruptcy liquidation? Peng said to him, "There is no other choice."

After the court made a liquidation ruling, first, oil companies and several airport companies applied to Wuhan Intermediate People's Court for restructuring East Star Airlines. However, it is expressly stipulated in civil aviation that the current law does not allow airports and aviation oil companies to participate in airlines.

On June 22, East Star International Travel Service submitted an application to the court to introduce a company in Shanghai as a strategic investor for restructuring.

It is reported that the executive director did not know about the above activities in the name of East Star International Travel Service. In the absence of legal authorization from East Star International Travel Service, some applicants for reorganization will not hesitate to operate illegally in order to continue the reorganization. Some people negotiate in the name of East Star Airlines, some people make statements with invalid official seals, and some people compile balance sheets without authorization.

Even so, the court attaches great importance to it.

The judge in charge of the case of Wuhan Intermediate People's Court told the reporter that the collegial panel also went to Shanghai and Beijing to investigate the main financial data such as registered capital and annual tax payment of a company in Shanghai and a company in Beijing. Unfortunately, the registered capital of these companies is only100000, and the largest registered capital is only100000, and the annual tax payment does not exceed100000. These companies participate in the restructuring of East Star Airlines, and obviously their strength is far from enough.

Lawyer Jason, a member of the bankruptcy administrator, said that after repeated analysis and research, it was confirmed that East Star Airlines did not have the objective conditions for restructuring: First, East Star Airlines was seriously insolvent and lost its restructuring value. Reorganizing East Star Airlines would cost a lot of money and involve huge investment risks. Second, according to the Cape Town Convention and its protocol, the bankruptcy administrator has dissolved the aircraft lease contract according to law, the aircraft lessor has exercised the right to take back all the aircraft according to law, and there are no aircraft in East Star Airlines. Third, East Star Airlines has only 64 pilots and 36 have left. Most of the crew are looking for other jobs. Routes and times, as prohibited transit resources, have been or will be used by other airlines for free or indirectly according to law. East Star Airlines has no basic conditions for flying. Fourth, after the suspension, the flight safety conditions of East Star Airlines have not improved, but have worsened. At present, neither the pilot management organization nor the flight safety organization exists. Fifth, East Star Airlines has a serious shortage of liquidity and a serious loss of business reputation.

It is based on these considerations that the bankruptcy reorganization applications were rejected one by one. On August 26th, 2009, Wuhan Intermediate People's Court ruled that East Star Airlines Limited went bankrupt.

From the process point of view, bankruptcy liquidation is actually the necessity of market competition, and the third creditors' meeting passed the bankruptcy property distribution plan with a consent rate of 90.37%, which seems to confirm this point.

Sad "Oriental Star"

"Lan Shili's ego is a tragic hero: all failures are bad luck or bad luck, and all legal disputes are false accusations. This may be an aspect of Lan Shili's life, but there are still some reasons why Lan Shili didn't write or didn't want to write: his imagination often exceeds the institutional reality and his own economic ability; He is very gambling, but I hope that gambling will not admit defeat, even at the expense of breaking the business rules of integrity. " —— Excerpted from Chen Xiao, a reporter from Sanlian Life Weekly.

Lan Shili called himself a tragic hero. East Star Airlines, which he founded, was a bit tragic in less than three years.

At the beginning of the establishment of East Star, Lan Shili described the tourism industry chain as aviation+travel agency+motorcade+scenic spot +95 15 1 car-calling platform.

Lan Shili's airline was built on "castles in the air" from the beginning, which is the most vivid metaphor of a former executive of East Star Airlines.

Civil aviation is a money-burning industry and must be supported by sufficient funds. The initial registered capital of East Star Airlines is only 80 million, and nine planes are leased, so the leasing pressure is huge.

"In fact, since 2007, the financial situation of East Star Airlines began to deteriorate, and it has become common to default on GECAS's aircraft rental."

Pilots have always been scarce resources. After the establishment of East Star Airlines, we had to recruit pilots from other airlines. In order to poach three captains over the age of 45 from an airline, a high price of 3 million was offered, far exceeding the maximum flow fee of 265,438+10,000 stipulated by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Lawyer Zhu Daokun, who is in charge of the pilot process among the bankruptcy administrators, explained that Lan Shili offered the highest salary of China Civil Aviation in order to quickly establish a flight team, even double that of other airlines, which also brought great financial pressure to East Star Airlines. At the same time, Lan Shili also discovered the "unruly" of these pilots. Pilots and Lan Shili have been negotiating for a long time about the treatment, and Lan Shili can't fire these pilots. Only when the pilot's salary goes up again can he keep the pilot by raising his salary.

East Star Airlines owes money everywhere, ranging from tens of millions to tens of thousands, with more than 200 yuan. "I never thought of such a thing." Zhejiang boss of a plastic toy factory said, "East Star Airlines said that it owed money at that time. I want to know how such a big company can run away. " I didn't expect to go for more than two years. "

There are four small bosses in Zhongxiang City, Hubei Province. Since 2006, they have been supplying vegetables, oil and rice to Dongxing International Hotel in Oak Bay, Kedian Town, Zhongxiang City. A boss named Xia said: "We have always been confused by the superficial phenomenon of East Star Group, supplying goods at low prices and making a little profit. But in recent years, East Star owes our four suppliers 1.5 million yuan. We have no money to go back to the upstream suppliers and suffered a lot. Every year we hide around and can't go home. "

During 1996, Xiaogan Branch supported Xiaogan Municipal Economic Commission to develop real estate in Macao, but later, because the Municipal Economic Commission could not repay the loan, it repaid the loan with the real estate in Macao. Xiaogan ICBC somehow entrusted Lan Shili to manage it, but he secretly sold the property and put the money into his own pocket. Later, Xiaogan Branch filed a lawsuit in Xiaogan Court, and Jason, as the plaintiff's agent in this case, has not recovered a penny so far.

These tricks may be effective in the low-end service field for a short time, but they can't be played in high-end industries, especially foreign-related high-risk industries.

"Airbus and GM have not been greatly affected in this bankruptcy process. They have risk control. When East Star Airlines broke the contract, they started an emergency hedging mechanism to keep the losses to a minimum, and then quickly started legal proceedings. Unlike domestic companies, I don't think airlines will pay back the money. "

"The plane to fly, come on at any time, find the airport landing! Aviation oil companies and airports don't care about the arrears of airlines. Anyway, they have to settle accounts after autumn. They are used to accepting credit. " Zhou, a former executive of East Star Airlines, said.

All the loans of Dongxing Group come from asset mortgage. In order to avoid the seizure of assets, East Star Group often changes its assets, and even a subsidiary of East Star will sue another subsidiary of the Group to seize assets first to prevent creditors from collecting debts.

Although Lan Shili holds 65,438+0,000% of the company's shares, he has never served as a legal person. The purpose of his doing this is to "avoid being investigated for responsibility by law", and the other is that all debtors can't find him. "He exhausted all the laws, all the games he could play, all the loopholes." —— Excerpted from Chen Xiao, a reporter from Sanlian Life Weekly.

The East Star Kingdom, built on a castle in the air, was shaken out of its true colors when the financial crisis came.

"East Star Airlines was terminally ill at that time, and the reorganization with China International Airlines was the best opportunity for Lanzhou to turn around the crisis, but other institutions were too smart to miss their lives," said Jason, a lawyer.