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Shanghai Old Fengxiang And Other Famous Gold Stores Were Investigated For Alleged Price Monopoly.

2013/7/26 18:17:00 20

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nowadays, while "Chinese aunt" is buying gold war, Lao Fengxiang and other hundred years of gold shop are facing a new round of business crisis.

Recently, a well-known gold shop in Shanghai, such as Lao Fengxiang, was investigated on suspicion of price monopoly, which once again aroused public concern about the price of gold market.

The international gold price has fallen by nearly 30% in less than a year after nearly 12 years of rising prices.

Although the price of gold has risen slightly in recent years, some jewelry companies such as Lao Fengxiang jewelry have bought a lot of raw materials at high price before the price of gold falls. In the face of the falling prices of raw materials, the profits of enterprises have been greatly affected.

"The current sales situation is very good, but the profit is almost gone," said Wang Ensheng, chief spokesman of Lao Fengxiang.

under such circumstances, the anti trust investigation of the NDRC is like adding insult to injury.

At present, a number of Shanghai gold shops, such as Lao Fengxiang, have submitted the self admission report to the Shanghai Price Supervision Bureau and the antimonopoly Bureau, recognizing that "collusion between enterprises collude prices and damages consumers' rights and interests".

submit the self admission report for the purpose of "discretionary light circumstances".

According to the estimated sales amount of about 25 billion yuan by Lao Feng Xiang in 2012, if the relevant provisions of the "anti trust law" are dealt with, Lao Feng Xiang will probably get a fine of 2 billion 500 million yuan.

antitrust investigation whirlpool

a few days ago, the Anti Monopoly Bureau of the national development and Reform Commission (NDRC) paid much attention to the investigation of many gold shops in Shanghai, including Lao Fengxiang.

it is reported that the above gold shop collusion monopolize the retail price of Shanghai gold jewelry through a platform called "Shanghai gold jewelry industry association".

the report also said that the relevant investigation and evidence collection phase is basically over. Many companies involved have submitted the self admission report to the price supervision and antitrust bureau of Shanghai, recognizing that "enterprises collude with each other to unify the price and damage the rights and interests of consumers" and so on. The enterprises involved include Lao Feng Xiang, Lao Miao gold, Ya Yi Jin Dian, Cheng Huang jewelry, Tianbao Longfeng, Zhou Dafu, Zhou Shengsheng and many other famous brands.

for this reason, Zhou Dafu and Zhou Shengsheng have issued clarification announcements recently.

Zhou Dafu issued a statement and Clarification Announcement on 19 and 23 days respectively, saying that the company did not involve Shanghai's gold shop, which was reported by the media, in violation of the "anti monopoly law".

however, under the influence of adverse news, the gold related plate of Hongkong listed has been generally down recently, and jewelry shares in the mainland have also been implicated.

according to the forty-sixth article of the anti trust law, if a business operator implements a monopoly agreement in violation of the relevant laws and regulations, it shall be ordered by the antitrust agency to stop the act and confiscate the proceeds, and impose a fine of more than 1% or less of the sales amount in the previous year. If the monopoly agreement has not been implemented, it may be fined not more than 500 thousand yuan.

according to the media, if the above regulations are dealt with, Lao Fengxiang will be fined more than 250 million yuan or less than 2 billion 500 million yuan.

public information shows that in August 2001, the Shanghai gold jewelry industry association and the Shanghai jade and Jade Association convened 13 main member units to draw up the industry self-discipline price. In December 24, 2001, the Shanghai Price Bureau issued an administrative warning penalty decision for 13 gold jewelry companies in Shanghai, determined that the gold self discipline price of the 13 enterprises was "price union", and demanded that the minimum benchmark price be stopped immediately.

But the final penalty order was cancelled.

according to official website information, the Shanghai gold jewelry industry association was founded in 1996, claiming that there are 226 existing member units, covering about 85% of the industry, with a market share of more than 90%.

gold investment value fog > /p >

Zhu Daming, a famous financial commentator, said gold has always been regarded as a treasure of value appreciation. But in fact, gold is only one of ten kinds of commodities. It fluctuates with the fluctuation of the market, and it also has the risk of devaluation.

Why does gold have the investment value as consumer goods?

in fact, gold price has a negative correlation with the US dollar index, that is, gold has a value preservation function for the US dollar. However, the RMB and US dollar index does not find obvious positive or negative correlation, so gold can not actually hedge against RMB.

many gold products in China are endowed with the concept of investment and have a great relationship with the sales strategy of Jindian.

Lao Feng Xiang's first half of 2013 performance Bulletin shows that the main reason for the two digit growth of company performance in the first half of this year is: in the face of the continuous decline of international gold prices this year, the company is calm and responsive, pays attention to marketing strategy and goes against the trend, greatly improves the sales volume of gold jewelry and other categories of products. At the same time, it also flexibly and effectively uses hedging tools to ensure the stability and sustainability of the core industry's profitability.

according to the insiders, many gold stores sell gold products such as gold bars, handicrafts and other gold products. They often promise to buy some products in the store, that is, when consumers buy such products, they can sell the spot goods at any time to the gold store according to the price of the day.

however, there is no statistical data on such investment products with "investment value". In this sense, the volume of pactions is not enough to cause concern.

HCR (Huicong Research) Zhai Shuqing told Tencent finance that in fact, under the circumstance of falling international gold prices, "Chinese mothers" (women over 45 years old, mostly women) buy gold jewelry and so on. Most of them are not investment behavior. They are interested in their hedging characteristics, as gifts, ornaments, etc., but not generally reported is a kind of "bottom hunting behavior".

hundred years old shop's business predicament

data show that in the domestic jewellery brand, Zhou Dafu's popularity and possession rate of consumers is much higher than that of the competitive brands. Among them, the popularity is 84.1% and Zhou Shengsheng is 78%.

In terms of ownership, Zhou Dafu outstrips 4 of high-end consumers and owns 27.9% of Zhou Dafu's products.

the old brand with Lao Fengxiang, Yu Garden and Beijing vegetable hundred has the advantage of positioning. It is understood that most of the consumers in these old brands are women over 45 years old. Their design requirements for jewelry are relatively conservative, and they are biased toward good quality and cost-effective gold products.

in fact, in addition to the value added in the gold market, the old brand is obviously different from the emerging brand.

Zhai Shuqing, according to HCR (Huicong Research), from the perspective of industrial chain, Lao Fengxiang and other hundred years old stores are relatively simple. At present, they are still selling gold products, buying raw materials by processing manufacturers, and selling backward stores, lacking corresponding risk hedging tools. Therefore, when international gold prices fluctuate greatly, the risks are relatively large.

Lao Feng Xiang said that in the face of the sharp fluctuations in international gold prices this year, the company has focused on marketing strategies and substantially increased sales of gold jewelry and other categories.

The company flexibly and effectively uses hedging tools to ensure the stability and sustainability of the core industry's profitability.

But there is no mention of how to hedge.

in addition, from the popularity or ownership rate, Lao Feng Xiang and other "time-honored brands" still do not have the competitiveness compared with Zhou Dafu and Zhou Shengsheng.

Data show that 21% of high-end consumers said they would buy Zhou Dafu in the next half year, and Zhou Shengsheng's proportion was 13.6%, ranking the top two.

gold price is uncertain. The industry chain is at a loss.

On Monday, the New York Mercantile Exchange's gold futures clearing price rose 3.3% in August to $1336 / ounce, the highest settlement price since June 19th, and gold prices also hit the biggest one-day gain in more than a year.

by this news boost, Zhou Dafu, Zhou Shengsheng, Lufu group, Royal watches and jewellery and other gold and jewelry stocks have been strong in recent years, and the market is also looking forward to the gold price will be better in the short term.

however, in the view of foreign investment banks, the market confidence is still insufficient, and the gold trend will continue to be weak.

Citigroup has issued a research report that, despite the recent rebound in gold prices, analysts are still bearish gold and expect gold prices to fall to $1150 an ounce before the fourth quarter, and may drop by $1100 an ounce by the end of the year.

although Zhou Dafu's latest financial data for the first quarter of fiscal year 2014 (from April to June) show that the overall turnover in the period increased significantly, but the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch still gave the investment rating of the big cities. The international gold price trend is weakening, the trend of the gross margin of the company is uncertain, and the foresight of the sales prospect is low.

Chen Sijin, a senior consultant at the Royal Bank of Canada risk management department (micro-blog), also believes that gold has entered a long bear market. The general trend will continue for several years, the shortest 5 years, longer than 15 years.

Even if the price of gold rises, it is only two steps and three steps.

under the circumstance that gold is not clear in the next step, the continued decline in gold prices will double the pressure of the relevant enterprises.

Observers pointed out that the first thing to do is gold mining enterprises and jewelry enterprises.

For the vast majority of gold mining enterprises, if gold prices continue to fall, we must consider reducing production, which will directly affect the profits of gold mining enterprises.

But once the jewelry companies store more goods in the early stage, they may face huge risks.

for gold mining enterprises, the price of gold is also approaching the cost range of gold mining step by step.

However, at present, most gold mining enterprises in China do not plan to reduce production capacity.

China's Mining Association said earlier that as the world's largest gold producer, China's gold output in 2013 will also grow by nearly 10%, reaching a new production record.

although the price of gold will affect its profit level, Zijin Mining official said that if the gold price continued to fall, the gross profit margin must be reduced. The company should start to reduce the cost and raise the metal recovery rate instead of reducing the output.

Zijin Mining has a gold rate of 63.05%.

compared with the gold mining enterprises with high interest rates, the jewelry enterprises in the downstream of the industrial chain will be under greater pressure.

An old brand gold jewelry company in Shanghai told the media that if the future consumers were mostly empty, they chose to buy a gold coin instead of buying gold jewelry, which would have a great impact on the company.

because gold shops usually pay off the price on the day of purchase, many gold stores have suffered a "one day loss of a villa" after the previous collapse of gold prices.

industry insiders say that large jewelry retailers have at least 300 kilograms of physical inventories, which fell sharply by 30 yuan / gram on Monday alone and 9 million yuan in inventory assets.

Ruijin international general manager Chen Haifeng pointed out that in the past, the price of gold was in a state of steady rise. The decline was not obvious. Gold merchants did not pay much attention to the risk control of gold prices. When they were out of stock, they replenish the goods wholesale again. When they bought the goods, they settled the gold price at that time and sold the products later, and the business concept remained at the traditional stage.

When gold prices fell rapidly, gold merchants had to "buy high and sell low", resulting in losses and even jewelry processing fees.