---
title: "COFCO: A Decade of Expansion, Years of Slimming Down, Ning Gaoning's Helplessness and Regret"
description: "How to solve the food problem for a quarter of the world's population is COFCO's top priority. As the 'eldest son of the nation,' COFCO holds a pivotal position, and it is said that when there is a major national event, COFCO is always involved. During his 11 years at COFCO, Ning Gaoning said it was his best moment, but facing the 'unfinished circle,' COFCO may also become his greatest regret. After years of 'slimming down,' COFCO's integration continues. Through 'steel for finance,' on October 8, Zhongyuan Special Steel was renamed COFCO Capital, officially listing on the A-share market with a valuation of 21.1 billion yuan, with its stock closing up 2.45% on its debut."
author: "金梅"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2019-10-26"
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citation: "金梅. “COFCO: A Decade of Expansion, Years of Slimming Down, Ning Gaoning's Helplessness and Regret.” New Distribution, 2019-10-26. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/cofco-a-decade-of-expansion-years-of-slimming-down-ning-gaoning-s-helple-3a26559b/"
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# COFCO: A Decade of Expansion, Years of Slimming Down, Ning Gaoning's Helplessness and Regret

> How to solve the food problem for a quarter of the world's population is COFCO's top priority. As the 'eldest son of the nation,' COFCO holds a pivotal position, and it is said that when there is a major national event, COFCO is always involved. During his 11 years at COFCO, Ning Gaoning said it was his best moment, but facing the 'unfinished circle,' COFCO may also become his greatest regret. After years of 'slimming down,' COFCO's integration continues. Through 'steel for finance,' on October 8, Zhongyuan Special Steel was renamed COFCO Capital, officially listing on the A-share market with a valuation of 21.1 billion yuan, with its stock closing up 2.45% on its debut.

**Introduction:**
**How to solve the food problem for a quarter of the world's population is COFCO's top priority. As the 'eldest son of the nation,' COFCO holds a pivotal position, and it is said that when there is a major national event, COFCO is always involved. During his 11 years at COFCO, Ning Gaoning said it was his best moment, but facing the 'unfinished circle,' COFCO may also become his greatest regret.**
After years of 'slimming down,' COFCO's integration continues.
Through 'steel for finance,' on October 8, Zhongyuan Special Steel was renamed COFCO Capital, officially listing on the A-share market with a valuation of 21.1 billion yuan, with its stock closing up 2.45% on its debut. The listing of COFCO Capital is by no means just a name change for one of COFCO Group's 'listed company cluster members.'
For COFCO, more news is about 'selling, selling, selling.'
On November 2 last year, COFCO Group first listed for transfer 100% equity of COFCO Natural Grains and its debt of about 108 million yuan. This company, which once created Wugudao, has lost its former glory, with the price shrinking to 25.2981 million yuan and 16.214 million yuan within a year, and on September 17, the price of 7 million yuan was less than a fraction of the original.
After years of losses exceeding profits, in July this year, COFCO Group decided to sell its subsidiary COFCO Innovation's 100% equity at a base price of 1 yuan. This company, born in the 'Ning Gaoning era,' created Womai.com, which raised over 2 billion yuan in financing, and has now become a hot potato.
Facing the sugar market cycle that is only halfway through, COFCO Sugar's performance continues to decline, with revenue and net profit falling at increasing rates. In the first half of this year, revenue was 6.42 billion yuan and net profit was 299 million yuan, down 31.72% and 41.28% year-on-year respectively. To cut losses and focus on its main business, COFCO Sugar sold its 49% stake in Xinjiang Tunhe Cement Co., Ltd. on October 9, to stop losses of 885 million yuan caused by this business over the past four years.
Welch said: NO.1, No.2, fix, sell, or close, which is also COFCO's recent action. In the past two years, COFCO Group has exited a total of more than 100 shell companies. The lingering pain of institutional bloat brought by the full industry chain layout in the Ning Gaoning era has not been eradicated, and the overall listing of COFCO, which has been called for years, has still not been achieved. As the 'eldest son of the nation,' COFCO's key position in national development, and its central enterprise status, bring inherent advantages but also many uncertainties.
**-01-**
**COFCO: The 'Going to Sea' of the National Granary**
How many products does COFCO have? A glimpse can be seen from the food supply guarantee list provided by COFCO for the 70th anniversary of the National Day, the parade village, and the parade ceremony: Fulinmen rice, flour, and oil products, COFCO Xiangxue bread, Mengniu dairy products, Jiajiakang meat, COFCO Tunhe fruit and vegetable juices and nut products, China Tea tea leaves, COFCO Coca-Cola series beverages, and many snacks and fresh foods from COFCO Womai... But this is still not all of COFCO.
Currently, COFCO has 14 listed companies, namely China Agri-Industries Holdings, China Foods, COFCO Sugar, COFCO Packaging, COFCO Biochemical, Joy City Holdings, Mengniu Dairy, Joy City Property, Jiugui Liquor, COFCO Meat,福田实业 (Hong Kong), Yashili International, Modern Farming, and COFCO Finance.
As an international grain trader, and together with Bank of China, one of the earliest Chinese companies to enter the Fortune Global 500, in July 2019, the US Fortune magazine released the 2019 'Global 500' ranking, with COFCO Group ranking 134th, marking its 26th consecutive year on the list.
**To feed 22% of the population with 7% of the land, 'China on the tip of the tongue' makes the whole world nervous, and even triggered the China threat theory. China's agricultural development is indeed difficult to sustain through self-sufficiency. Solving the food problem for over a billion people is by no means a simple matter. How to firmly hold the rice bowl of the Chinese people in our own hands is a big issue.**
From 'not having enough to eat' to 'eating well,' from 'eating whatever is available' to 'having whatever you want to eat,' the dramatic changes on Chinese dining tables over the decades are evident. From tightening belts to export grain for foreign exchange, to connecting the national granary with fields and dining tables, and then to the world granary, reviewing COFCO's development trajectory, 'change' is its biggest characteristic. It can be said that when there is a major national event, COFCO is always involved.
In 1949, in a bungalow in a small alley in Tianjin, COFCO's predecessor, North China Foreign Trade Company, was established. At that time, the new China's economy was just starting, foreign exchange was extremely scarce, and the country and people tightened their belts and saved on food to export grain for foreign exchange. As a policy company implementing the national grain and oil food import and export policy, COFCO was given dual responsibilities of operation and management.
For more than three decades thereafter, the import and export trade of most agricultural products such as wheat, corn, rice, barley, soybeans, oilseeds, raw sugar, as well as canned goods, vegetables, wine, and beverages, were uniformly operated and managed by COFCO.
In the 1960s, due to economic difficulties and insufficient food supply, hunger became a widespread social problem. Against this backdrop, COFCO launched trade with Australia, France, Cuba, and other countries, opening the prelude to China's grain imports. But simple import and export could only superficially solve China's food problem, so COFCO began to establish production bases and workshops domestically, linking production areas with processing and sales, and extending its business to the front end of the industry chain.
In the 1970s, COFCO established a number of single-item production bases for exporting agricultural and sideline products, and also supported a number of factories and workshops dedicated to export. This not only increased the quantity of export commodities but also had a huge impact on China's agricultural and sideline product breeding structure at the time.
At the beginning of reform and opening up, under policy guidance, COFCO began to transform from a policy-oriented trading company to a market-oriented, industrialized enterprise. Coca-Cola, which had disappeared for 30 years, returned to China with COFCO's help. At the same time, COFCO began to get involved in the wine and beverage industry, introducing foreign wines to the Chinese market.
Over more than a decade, COFCO gradually formed eight business series: grain and oil processing, wine and beverage production, hotel management, agricultural product planting and breeding, warehousing and transportation, packaging products, industrial food, and property development. Fulinmen cooking oil, Great Wall wine, COFCO Plaza, and others were all born during this period.
By the late 1980s, China's foreign trade system reform gradually deepened, foreign trade management rights were gradually liberalized, and more market-oriented companies joined the business activities. COFCO adjusted its business structure, operation methods, commodity structure, and management framework, transforming into a market-oriented enterprise. COFCO's business was no longer limited to trade; it also began to involve industrial production.
In 1993, COFCO Group entered the capital market, becoming one of the earliest central enterprises to venture into overseas capital markets. 1998 was a turning point for COFCO. That year, COFCO was restructured into a wholly state-owned enterprise. With the development of China's socialist market economy, COFCO leveraged its traditional advantages in grain and oil food to accelerate the development of its edible oil, flour, rice, wine, metal packaging, and other industries.
As COFCO opened channels for China's grain, oil, and food products to the international market, various grain, oil, and food materials gradually flowed into the domestic market, filling demand gaps. The living conditions of the people gradually improved, and as can be seen from dining tables in every household, food became richer without people noticing.
**-02-**
**The Ning Gaoning Era: Corporate Transformation and Pain**
For COFCO, Ning Gaoning is an important figure. From China Resources to COFCO, and from COFCO to Sinochem, Ning Gaoning, known as the 'state-owned enterprise cowherd,' steered COFCO for 11 years, earning much praise and facing many doubts.
People familiar with Ning Gaoning say, 'Such state-owned enterprise leaders are rare.' He has a determined and responsible spirit, and strong appeal and personal charm in the industry and capital markets. Unlike most central enterprise leaders who rose from the grassroots, Ning Gaoning was among the first batch of MBAs after reform and opening up, holding a Master of Business Administration from the University of Pittsburgh. Without official jargon and answering questions directly, Ning Gaoning has always strived to practice professional manager culture in state-owned enterprises, setting a benchmark for other SOEs.
Before joining COFCO, during his 18 years at China Resources, Ning Gaoning used the capital market to transform this foreign trade company into an industrial enterprise. Through acquisitions and integration, he expanded into real estate, beer, retail, textiles, power plants, pharmaceuticals, and building materials, not only creating the classic commercial real estate model, the MixC, but also making China Resources stand out in beer, retail, and other fields. Like Morgan, who swept through American finance and industry more than a century ago, he was hailed by the media as the 'Red Morgan.'
**At the end of 2004, Ning Gaoning, skilled in capital operations, came to COFCO Group and began to transform COFCO's genes.**
It is an indisputable fact that grain, oil, and flour processing, as COFCO's main business, not only does not make money but often loses money. The prices of raw materials such as soybeans, rice, wheat, and corn in China are much higher than those in the international market, but the selling prices of processed products such as edible oil are sometimes subject to macroeconomic regulation. In such a challenging environment, both Ning Gaoning and Kuok Khoon Hong, the boss of transnational grain and oil enterprise Wilmar International, can only sigh helplessly.
**Under the existing state-owned enterprise system and macro environment, it is difficult for Ning Gaoning to turn COFCO's main business into a money-making machine.**
When the main business cannot achieve sustained profitability, choosing industries, adjusting industries, and expanding industries is indeed crucial for the future development of the enterprise. Ten years ago, with the same capital and the same diligence, whether one chose to make clothing or real estate would make a world of difference today.
The Xidan Joy City, which opened grandly at the end of 2007, not only achieved profitability from its first year of operation but also achieved an ultra-high investment return rate of 25% per year for the next eight years. In Ning Gaoning's view, whether it is the MixC or Joy City, such large complexes are a good way to preserve and increase value.
Through multiple acquisitions to inject fresh blood into the enterprise and increase its vitality, Ning Gaoning did this at China Resources, and at COFCO, he continued as always. Under Ning Gaoning's leadership, COFCO Group restructured Xinjiang Tunhe, restructured China Tuhsu, restructured China Grain, recruited China Resources Alcohol, acquired Shenzhen Baoheng, took control of Fengyuan Biochemical, took over Wugudao, and invested in Mengniu.
The 50 mergers and acquisitions over 11 years gave COFCO more than 50 brands, including Fulinmen cooking oil, Great Wall wine, Xiangxue flour, Wugudao instant noodles, and Yuehuo juice.
COFCO products are also everywhere in supermarkets, from rice, flour, and oil to chocolate, red wine, and even tea and fungus. COFCO has so many products that it could open its own convenience store. During this period, COFCO's total assets grew from 67.6 billion yuan to 71.9 billion US dollars (459 billion yuan), and revenue increased from 44.1 billion yuan to 405.4 billion yuan, ranking among the top three global grain enterprises.
Ning Gaoning said that COFCO's mergers and acquisitions, which appear to be 'addition,' are actually 'subtraction.' The M&A is not a horizontal strategy but a vertical strategy, aimed at strengthening the synergy of business segments. He hoped to use the 'bamboo stick' of the full industry chain to string the entire COFCO together like sugar-coated haws. So in 2009, in order to maximize value through economies of scale, synergy effects, and industrial status, COFCO proposed to build a full industry chain, launching a business layout 'from farmland to dining table.'
That is, through full coverage of multiple links from agricultural raw materials to end consumer goods, including planting, storage and logistics, trade, processing, breeding and slaughtering, food manufacturing and marketing, to enhance COFCO's voice, pricing power, and sales dominance. This move attracted imitation by similar companies such as Bright Food and New Hope. This is a huge, refined project with heavy assets, heavy investment, and a test of comprehensive strength.
The first step of the full industry chain was completed through large-scale mergers and acquisitions, with COFCO making a series of acquisitions in agricultural product processing and the food industry. Ning Gaoning was also well aware of the institutional constraints when transforming the genes of state-owned enterprises: 'When selecting managers, after reaching a certain level, one must screen within the scope designated by superiors.' But efforts did not stop there.
After COFCO enters an industry, at a certain stage it begins to introduce foreign capital or professional investors. On the one hand, it introduces external forces through equity diversification, using capital operations to push for reform of the state-owned enterprise system. On the other hand, it securitizes promising businesses one by one. As the 'COFCO system' companies went public one after another, introduced strategic investors and professional managers, and entered the internet e-commerce field by founding 'Womai.com,' Ning Gaoning completed the genetic transformation of COFCO with bold moves.
**After completing the layout of all links in the full industry chain, the second step requires proportional development of each link. The key indicator to measure the success of the full industry chain is the proportion of production synergy. But the difficulty of synergy far exceeds imagination.**
'The production synergy ratio of COFCO's various categories is still relatively low, varying by category, roughly around 10%, mainly more upstream and less downstream. COFCO was historically a trading company, and now it needs to consider operations when purchasing and connect the entire process. The competition in the back-end brand and marketing is fierce, and we also need to consider integrating the original channels of acquired companies and synergizing with the channels of various categories,' Ning Gaoning explained at the time.
He believed that COFCO had become a diversified investment company, and diversified investment might not perform well in a certain period or stage, but this would not affect the overall situation of COFCO Group.
The problems of integration and synergy are clearly visible in the mismatched development of asset scale and profit scale: in 2005, COFCO's total assets were only 67.6 billion yuan. After intensive acquisitions, restructuring, and investment expansion, by 2013, the asset scale had reached 284.3 billion yuan, but its total profit increased nearly fivefold from 2005 to 2011, reaching 10.2 billion yuan, and then continued to decline.
In the past two years, COFCO's performance has accelerated its decline. Factors such as poor macroeconomic conditions, fierce market competition, rising costs, and financial exchange losses have made COFCO, which is digesting acquired assets, increasingly frostbitten.
'Even if it faces short-term losses, COFCO has to make some layouts. COFCO does not have an advantage in grain trade. COFCO's cost advantage mainly lies in scale and layout. By controlling each link of the industry chain, squeezing costs throughout the process, from raw and auxiliary materials to energy, to production layout, to logistics, systematic arrangements can be made,' Ning Gaoning said in a media interview in early 2013.
But the difficulty of the full industry chain exceeded expectations. Among its eight listed companies, except for Mengniu, performance deteriorated significantly, and the concept of the full industry chain was strongly questioned by the market, which is an unavoidable reality. Ning Gaoning said that COFCO's full industry chain has its own problems, such as too fast expansion, which overall does not match the speed of economic development, the level of the management team, especially the expansion capability. 'Give me time. The growth of the enterprise and the full industry chain need time to be completed!'
But with intensifying market competition, the business environment is not as good as before, and the enterprise's shortcomings in talent and systems are difficult to cure in the short term. Achieving synergy quickly is by no means an easy task.
**-03-**
**Internationalization: The 'Eldest Son of the Nation' Painfully and 'Happily'**
**Before solving the synergy problem in the full industry chain, a more thorny problem came.**
At the end of 2013, the Central Rural Work Conference designated 'going global' in agriculture as one of the strategic directions. As a domestic industry leader, COFCO plunged into the 'red sea' of the international market and launched multi-front operations, delivering two overseas M&A report cards within one year.
In February and April 2014, COFCO Group, together with Hopu, Temasek, and other multinational investment groups, successively acquired 51% equity of the Dutch agricultural products and commodity trading group Nidera and 51% equity of Noble Agriculture, a subsidiary of Hong Kong's Noble Group.
These two acquisitions cost about 3 billion US dollars, making them the largest overseas M&A in China's grain, oil, and food industry to date. COFCO initially formed a global agricultural product supply chain layout, with international business volume exceeding domestic business volume, becoming an international grain trader.
In the global grain and oil industry chain, from upstream planting of soybeans, corn, and other agricultural products to processing and sales, ultimately, large terminals must be relied upon for logistics operations. Through M&A, COFCO was able to more rationally allocate warehousing, ports, and other resources, stepping into the center of the world grain market.
In the past, when COFCO purchased soybeans overseas, it had to order through middlemen and suppliers. Now, by controlling Nidera, it can buy directly from farmers in Brazil and Argentina, freeing itself from the 'control' of middlemen and suppliers on soybean prices and reducing dependence on international agricultural product traders such as 'ABCD' (ADM, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus, the four major old-line international grain traders).
But beneath the prosperity, COFCO's pain is also obvious. At that time, COFCO's asset scale climbed to 439.8 billion yuan, but profits fell to 3.1 billion yuan. The domestic market's full industry chain was not yet straightened out, and the challenges of the international market were even more severe.
The financial costs of M&A need a long time to digest. The 'ABCD' four major international grain traders control about 80% of the world's grain trading volume and have absolute say in setting international grain prices.
The world's major grain production areas have basically been divided up by the 'ABCD' four major international grain traders, and good assets will not be easily released. A major background to this acquisition of Noble Agriculture was its own poor operating conditions, which dragged down Noble Group's revenue, creating an opportunity for COFCO.
During the integration of the Dutch company Nidera, COFCO discovered that the company had many violations and concealed asset losses. In 2018, COFCO International sought compensation of more than 500 million US dollars from the former owners of Nidera, which caused a stir in the industry.
COFCO lacks an international team, and due to the incentive mechanism of state-owned enterprises, in recent years, there has been high turnover of talent in international trade and futures trading, making it more difficult for the 'newborn calf' COFCO to topple the four mountains in the international market.
Acquiring Nidera and Noble gave COFCO an international trading platform and grain sources in South America, but this is only the first step of its international strategy. To become an international grain trader, COFCO still lacks many things.
Although it has the advantage of scale trade volume brought by the Chinese market, it lacks upstream resources and has not yet reached the upstream of the three major grain production areas: North America, the Black Sea region, and the Pacific region. This temporarily prevents COFCO from getting rid of the 'international middlemen' of ABCD and realizing the 'world granary' dream of 'closely connecting the dining tables of more than a quarter of the world's population with the world's farms.'
As the 'eldest son of the nation,' becoming the 'international granary' is its unshirkable responsibility and duty. Ensuring the granary for a quarter of the world's population and ensuring national food security is COFCO's bounden duty.
COFCO's integration and synergy have not yet been achieved, and in 2015, the Ning Gaoning era at COFCO came to an end. It seems that Ning Gaoning left a mess for his successors, but for Ning Gaoning, it was a circle he had no chance to complete. In the process of gradually improving the enterprise's strategic layout, he could not accompany the enterprise to the final harvest period. This is the deepest sigh left by Ning Gaoning in 2015.
Regarding integration and synergy, Ning Gaoning believed that COFCO should be divided into four categories: grain and oil, food, real estate, and finance. For example, COFCO Tunhe, COFCO Biochemical, and China Agri-Industries Holdings should be classified as grain and oil companies; China Foods, Mengniu Dairy, and Jiugui Liquor as food companies; COFCO Property and Joy City Property as real estate companies... On this basis, adopting the method of 'merging similar items,' the re-integration of these listed companies should be completed by 2017, but this task was left for successors to achieve.
After Ning Gaoning was transferred away from COFCO, Zhao Shuanglian succeeded as chairman of COFCO Group, and then in July 2018, Lv Jun took over from Zhao Shuanglian to lead COFCO Group. The transition from high-speed growth to high-quality development and enhancing the enterprise's core business capabilities became the main theme for COFCO.
In the past, COFCO mainly relied on non-main businesses such as real estate and hotels for profits, in addition to national policy preferences and subsidies. By the end of 2015, COFCO's total assets were about 459 billion yuan, with total liabilities of 324.1 billion yuan, and an asset-liability ratio of about 70.6%. The core sectors of grain, oil, cotton, and sugar were severely loss-making.
Starting in 2016, COFCO completely cut off a batch of auxiliary businesses with poor profitability and mismatch with the main business, further concentrating on the core main business of grain, oil, cotton, and sugar.
COFCO's '13th Five-Year' development plan pointed out that for grain, oil, cotton, and sugar as core business segments, state-owned capital must maintain absolute control. By 2020, 80% of COFCO's assets will be concentrated in the core main business, and the market share of the core main business should each account for more than 15%. For the three major business segments outside the core main business—food, real estate, and finance—equity ratios can be flexibly controlled.
Completely exiting non-core main businesses, COFCO's 'selling, selling, selling' stopped the 'bleeding points.' After a series of restructuring and integration, eliminating and exiting a hundred enterprises, the number of legal entities was reduced by 20%. To pursue streamlining, even the functional departments at COFCO Group headquarters were reduced from 13 to 7. This is the logic behind the series of slimming actions mentioned at the beginning. 'Slimming down' is gradually solving COFCO's problem of being 'large but not refined' and bringing it back to its main business.
**-04-**
**Conclusion**
Focusing on the core main business of grain, oil, cotton, and sugar, and actively supporting the development of meat and dairy businesses, is the strategic choice of COFCO Group as the 'eldest son of the nation.'
The social root of this move is that under the current state of China's agricultural development, per-mu yield cannot compare with major international grain production areas, and due to land costs, grain costs remain high, lacking international competitiveness. In the past, to protect its own production, large-scale subsidy waste was caused.
China's arable land is already insufficient. With the improvement of living standards and changes in people's dietary structure, the growth in meat consumption has led to a further widening gap in animal feed, which is mainly made from grains. Buying farmland overseas is only a stopgap measure. COFCO linking the dining tables of ordinary Chinese people with world food production bases and becoming an 'international granary' indeed has far-reaching significance.
In the past two or three years, COFCO's core business volume of grain, oil, cotton, and sugar has grown rapidly, and the efficiency improvement of the core business has also been very obvious. In 2017, total profits exceeded 5 billion yuan, accounting for 42% of the group's annual overall profits.
In 2018, COFCO Group's total assets reached 560.6 billion yuan, with annual revenue of 471.1 billion yuan, annual operating volume of nearly 160 million tons, global storage capacity of 31 million tons, annual processing capacity of 90 million tons, and annual port transshipment capacity of 65 million tons, ranking among the forefront of international grain traders. But the road ahead is still tortuous and long.
As Ning Gaoning said, 'Responsibility is not a cost, but competitiveness, and an advantage for the enterprise.' Judging from today's Huawei and Ren Zhengfei, this statement does make sense. In the red sea battle of the international market, COFCO is destined to have a bloody fight, but behind this courageous undertaking, COFCO's focus on its main business has indeed made its business more focused and improved its competitiveness.
During his 11 years at COFCO, Ning Gaoning said it was his best moment. Facing this unfinished circle, Ning Gaoning left with regret. Perhaps his greatest regret is not the mistakes he made in the full industry chain layout, but that he will never have the chance to correct this mistake in his lifetime.
Source: Lishi Business Review (ID: libusiness)
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- Author: 金梅
- Published: 2019-10-26
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- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/wXS-lsV9jj3k5p5xVHXs_Q

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