Over 30 years ago, a young man observed a phenomenon during his travels: in large shopping malls in Taiwan, China, the entrance was lined with cosmetics counters, while in mainland China, they were all food counters. He saw a business opportunity—as the mainland developed rapidly, the first floor of shopping malls would inevitably, like Taiwan, have neatly arranged cosmetics counters and a dazzling array of cosmetics. This young man was Liang Liangsheng, founder of C-Bons Group and former richest person in Hubei. In 1989, he brought capital to Wuhan, Hubei, a province known as the "thoroughfare of nine provinces," and started with a small cosmetics company, eventually entering daily chemical, sanitary products, maternal and infant products, tourism, and other industries. He created brands such as Slek, Jieting, Meitao, and Quanyinai, building a daily chemical group. Daily chemicals made Liang Liangsheng's business status. Starting in 2002, Liang Liangsheng topped the Hubei rich list for many years. Now, he has "abandoned" daily chemicals. On the evening of November 11, A-share listed company Haoyue Care announced that it had signed an "Equity Transfer Agreement" with Hubei C-Bons Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "C-Bons Co., Ltd."), Liang Liangsheng, and Hubei C-Bons Care Products Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "C-Bons Care"), agreeing to acquire 100% equity of C-Bons Care held by C-Bons Co., Ltd. for a transaction price of RMB 360 million. In short, Liang Liangsheng sold his daily chemical care business. C-Bons Care owns care brands such as Jieting, Quanyinai, and Meiyuejian, with the most well-known being the sanitary napkin brand Jieting. Founded in 1997, Jieting was a first-generation domestic brand that was once all the rage. After C-Bons Care was sold, C-Bons Group completely divested its daily chemical care segment, leaving only resorts, golf courses, real estate, and other sectors. "Daily Chemical King" Liang Liangsheng has completely bid farewell to daily chemicals. China Entrepreneur magazine made multiple calls to Haoyue Care and C-Bons Group regarding the acquisition of C-Bons Care by Haoyue Care and the reasons for C-Bons Group's divestiture of its daily chemical care segment, but as of press time, no calls were answered. Selling Jieting Sanitary Napkins Again Liang Liangsheng had already considered exiting as early as 2006. According to Economic Observer News, in April 2006, C-Bons Group invited PricewaterhouseCoopers as a financial advisor and proposed selling some of its industrial assets. The deal was finalized in October 2007. C-Bons Group sold 85% of C-Bons Daily Chemical to Germany's Beiersdorf, the parent company of Nivea, for 317 million euros. C-Bons Daily Chemical included three shampoo brands—Slek, Fengying, and Shunshuang—as well as the hair styling brand Meitao. The sanitary napkin brand Jieting shared a unified sales network and team with the above four daily chemical products. Liang Liangsheng originally planned to sell Jieting as well, but Beiersdorf was unwilling, which became one of the difficulties in the acquisition negotiations. It was not until February 2007 that C-Bons and Beiersdorf reached a preliminary cooperation intention for the acquisition. After that, C-Bons Group specially established Hubei C-Bons Daily Chemical Company, into which C-Bons Group's daily chemical industry was placed, while Jieting was spun off. The sale of daily chemical assets at that time may have been related to the development bottleneck encountered by C-Bons's daily chemical industry. As multinational companies like Procter & Gamble "conquered" the domestic hair care and other markets, foreign brands gradually gained the upper hand in fierce market competition. At its peak, C-Bons Daily Chemical's sales reached 2.3 billion yuan, but by around 2006, they had fallen to about 1.6 billion yuan. Among them, Slek, which once held a 13% share of the domestic shampoo market, second only to P&G's Rejoice, gradually fell behind foreign brands such as Rejoice, Head & Shoulders, and Pantene. Now, 17 years later, news of Jieting being sold again has caused regret among industry insiders and some former C-Bons Group employees. As one of the earliest local sanitary napkin brands, Jieting focused on R&D and continuous innovation. It pioneered "mini" sanitary napkins, the first generation of winged sanitary napkins, "night-time ultra-thin" sanitary napkins, and breathable sanitary napkins, attracting many consumers. Jieting also invited Xu Jinglei, Yang Mi, Zhao Liying, and others to endorse it, and in February this year, Guan Xiaotong became its latest spokesperson. However, in recent years, Jieting's development has been lukewarm. Although it ranks among the top ten in the industry, its market share has not seen significant breakthroughs. Some employees and agents believe that C-Bons has "poor management and serious formalism, making decline and sale inevitable." Apart from Jieting's own reasons, an industry reality is that the sanitary napkin market is facing fierce competition, and local brands do not have an advantage. A research report by Guosen Securities shows that in the sanitary napkin market, foreign brands have a relative advantage in share; among local brands, except for Hengan International, most other brands occupy positions fifth to tenth. C-Bons Group belongs to the third tier, with a market share of approximately 0.9% to 1.5%. But the Jieting brand is still viewed favorably. Some industry insiders believe that Jieting is a good brand, very worth acquiring, and that C-Bons Group sold it too cheaply. The acquirer, Haoyue Care, is also interested in the brands under C-Bons Care, including Jieting. Haoyue Care, known as the "first OEM stock" in the care industry, has almost stopped using terms like "OEM" and "ODM" in its financial reports in recent years, vigorously developing its own brands, seemingly eager to shake off the "OEM" label. In the first half of 2024, due to increased promotion of its own brand products, Haoyue Care's sales expenses increased by 58.63% year-on-year, reaching 94.34 million yuan. What Haoyue Care needs now is good brands. In its announcement, Haoyue Care stated that C-Bons Care's "Jieting," "Quanyinai," and "Meiyuejian" brands have high visibility and reputation in the industry. This acquisition is conducive to the company's "promotion of independent brand" development. C-Bons Care's performance is not poor. Haoyue Care disclosed that in 2023, C-Bons Care achieved operating revenue of 540 million yuan and net profit of 13.7716 million yuan; in the first half of this year, the corresponding figures were 320 million yuan and 11.4453 million yuan. "Vision Is More Important Than Capital" Liang Liangsheng is extremely low-key and rarely appears in public in recent years. In his early years of business and running enterprises, he had a famous saying: vision is more important than capital. "When doing business and running enterprises, you need to see the environment clearly. Over the years, I don't think business relies on 'speculation,' but on being good at discovering and seizing opportunities," Liang Liangsheng said. In the later development of C-Bons, he indeed demonstrated his vision. C-Bons Group is a Hong Kong-funded enterprise, but in fact, Liang Liangsheng was born in Meizhou, Guangdong. He came from a poor family and experienced the hardships of life early. In 1968, he was sent to the mountainous area of Meixian, Guangdong, for the "rustication" movement. During the day, he did farm work, and at night, he studied by the light of a kerosene lamp. Soon, he was recruited to work in a state-owned mine, which was an even more difficult experience. Going down into the mine was scorching hot; once in the mine, he could only wear shorts and rubber boots. After a night shift, his boots would be full of sweat, making noise as he walked. In 1982, Liang Liangsheng and his wife moved to Hong Kong, China, to make a living. Initially, life was very hard; they lived in a house of four or five square meters, with the couple squeezed on the sofa to sleep. Liang Liangsheng insisted on attending night school, systematically studying shipping, English, international trade, and economic management. Later, through a chance opportunity, he learned that the mainland urgently needed timber, so he contacted mainland merchants and made several deals, earning his "first pot of gold." In 1986, Liang Liangsheng entered the cosmetics industry. In 1989, he founded C-Bons Group in Hong Kong, and the same year, C-Bons Group established its mainland headquarters in Wuhan—a decision that surprised his friends. At that time, a popular saying was: "From east to west, north to south, get rich in Guangdong." Guangdong is coastal and more open to reform, and many of Liang Liangsheng's friends invested there, with many urging him to go to Guangdong. Moreover, he was from Meizhou, Guangdong. Why choose Wuhan, where he knew no one? "Coming to Wuhan was indeed a cautious choice," Liang Liangsheng admitted in a media interview more than a decade later. At that time, for domestic goods to enter the market, they had to go through state-owned wholesale stations, which then distributed to department stores and lower-level wholesale stations. Among China's three major wholesale channels at the time, Guangzhou wholesale basically covered South China, Shanghai wholesale covered East China, and Wuhan wholesale covered not only Central China but also radiated to Northeast and Northwest China. To sell products nationwide, starting from Wuhan was the most reasonable. In addition, Liang Liangsheng's investigation at the time found that if cosmetics were transported from Guangdong to the north, there were only two channels—air and train—which were either costly or involved long waits, or were difficult. Wuhan is located in the center of the country, with convenient transportation in all directions, and also had advantages in business and talent environment. The economics he had studied made him place great importance on geographical environment and business radiation environment, which he believed an entrepreneur must carefully consider. The first product launched by C-Bons Group was Lihua C-Bons Beauty Cream, which went on sale in 1989. However, due to various reasons, Lihua C-Bons did not develop smoothly. Liang Liangsheng decided to transform, seeking a gap in the segmented shampoo market, starting with a single brand and concentrating limited resources to open a breakthrough. In the shampoo market, the mountain in front of C-Bons was Procter & Gamble. In 1988, P&G entered the Chinese market and launched its first brand product—Head & Shoulders shampoo—which became an instant hit thanks to its unique anti-dandruff selling point and huge annual advertising investment. Although C-Bons and P&G entered mainland China almost simultaneously, they were clearly not competitors of the same weight. However, Liang Liangsheng believed that big companies are not scary; they cannot do everything. As long as a small company can concentrate its limited resources on markets that big companies ignore, it can compete with them. "Big companies have their capital; we C-Bons people have our vision," Liang Liangsheng said. In 1996, the shampoo brand Slek was born and, with strong marketing, competed with P&G for market share. "Intercepting" P&G C-Bons's early glory was inseparable from Liang Liangsheng's "unique weapon"—terminal marketing strategy. According to the official website, C-Bons Group implemented its terminal marketing strategy in 1997. But in fact, in the early stages of development, the prototype of the terminal marketing strategy had already appeared. Before 1992, C-Bons's products mainly relied on wholesale station channels, but the wholesale channels gradually showed signs of shrinking. Liang Liangsheng quickly noticed this. He decided to give products to wholesale stations, then send C-Bons salespeople to "work" for the wholesale stations, running the market, doing promotions, and helping the wholesale stations sell goods. This approach allowed C-Bons to gradually build its own marketing network in secret. Sure enough, after 1992, the business capabilities of domestic wholesale stations declined day by day. Some enterprises that relied on wholesale station marketing collapsed along with the wholesale stations, but C-Bons was not affected. By then, C-Bons's marketing network was mature, and its business personnel had established close relationships with major merchants. Without wholesale stations, C-Bons products entered department store counters even faster. "Facts have proven that this special marketing method we pioneered—state-owned wholesale plus private terminal promotion—played a key role in the early development of C-Bons," Liang Liangsheng said. After Slek shampoo was launched, Liang Liangsheng also used terminal marketing to compete head-on with P&G. At that time, P&G was flooding TV stations with advertisements during prime time. C-Bons could not compete with P&G in financial resources, so Liang Liangsheng used a "clever trick"—placing Slek products next to P&G's counters. Wherever P&G products were displayed, Slek followed, and he arranged sales guides beside the counters to "intercept" P&G's customers at the last step. While others were fighting on TV ads, Slek made a big deal at the terminal, attracting consumers. According to Jingchu Net, after 1996, within just five years, Slek's annual sales exceeded 1 billion yuan, defeating P&G's Head & Shoulders and taking the second place in market share. That was also the peak period for C-Bons Group. By 2002, C-Bons Group had developed multiple brands including Slek, Jieting, Meitao, and Fengying, with an annual output value exceeding 2 billion yuan. Liang Liangsheng's personal wealth also multiplied. Starting from 2002, when he first appeared on the Hurun list and became Hubei's richest person, he held the top spot on Hubei's rich list for seven consecutive years. However, the era of C-Bons has finally passed. Those once-shining daily chemical and care brands have either disappeared or been sold. Liang Liangsheng, who once dared to challenge global daily chemical giant P&G, has lost his former ambition, selling Jieting, a brand with a 27-year history, for only 360 million yuan. References: "Chu Shang Cheng Gong Qi Si Lu (1): 'Hubei Gong Yi Di Yi Ren' Liang Liangsheng," Jingchu Net/Hubei Daily, Zhang Lei "The Full Story of C-Bons Falling into Beiersdorf's Hands," Economic Observer News, Zhou Tao "This Life, Wuhan Is My Hometown," Wuhan Literature and History Materials, Jiang Taixu "Forbes Rich List No. 33 Liang Liangsheng: I Get Along Best with Wuhan People!", Han Net-Changjiang Daily, Deng Nianwu "Meizhou Has an Ancestral Hall Shared by Guangdong and Fujian, with Over 700,000 Descendants," Southern Daily, Zhang Liuqing "From Daily Chemicals and Electronics to Automobiles and Medicine, Hubei Has Produced Five Richest People in Ten Years—Decoding the Changes of Hubei's Richest People to Explore the Trajectory of Wealth Creation," Chutian Golden News, Liu Gangjian, Zhu Anzhang