On February 9, the annual meeting of Cedar Holdings Group was held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Guangzhou. At the meeting, Mr. King Cheung, Board Chairman of the group, delivered an important speech entitled “We Are Closer Than Ever to Our Mission”. He said that 2017 marked a key milestone in the history of Cedar Holdings, as the company was poised for future growth based on our previous success. As the top-ranking private enterprise in Guangzhou, Cedar Holdings is closer than ever to achieving our dream of becoming a world-class enterprise, thanks to the culture and strategy the company has shaped and the potential it has pooled over the year. We’d like to publish this important speech in two parts to allow you to have a better understanding of Cedar Holdings and King Cheung’s vision for the company. Here is the first part; the second part will be published tomorrow.
Dear colleagues:
As we welcome the new year of 2018, we bring with us an abundant harvest from the past.
What is the historic opportunity in this era? First, let us look back to find out where we are and get a clearer view of the era in which we now live.
The past year of 2017 marked a key milestone in the history of Cedar Holdings and put us in an optimal position for future growth based on our previous success.
A great country is built by forging ahead with innovation and an era evolves one step at a time. Likewise, Cedar Holdings prides ourselves on every achievement made in the past year. It is on the basis of these achievements that we can unleash our potential for innovation and transformation.
Based on our experiences over the past 20 years, Cedar Holdings has shaped a unique model that can provide rational support for our management system and strategic guidance for our future development. In the past year, guided by our unique model, our six major industry groups have posted impressive results while achieving a combination of external expansion and internal growth. Meanwhile, we were delighted to see SINOER go public and become the second listed company of Cedar Holdings. Every one of our business operations delivers great performance that deserves recognition.
Gongtongyun reported record-setting annual revenue, ranking first in the industry in terms of market share in southern, eastern, and northern China. With a diverse operating portfolio, a wide array of business models, and an increasingly influential global reach, it has been recognized as China’s largest commodity market maker. After dominating the domestic refined copper market, Gongtongyun will expand its footprint to the upstream and downstream industrial chain. For the next step, we seek to go global, cement our industry leadership by leveraging our scale, and lead the global transformation of intelligent supply chains.
As the first listed company of Cedar Holdings and a core company in our chemical industry group, Qixiang Tengda’s revenue in the first three quarters of last year went up by 2.5 times year-on-year. I am not allowed to share the financial figures here due to the disclosure obligations for listed companies. However, I want to emphasize that 2017 marks Qixiang Tengda’s first full fiscal year as a member of the Cedar Holdings family. Its rapid and robust development mirrors our strategic approach of “embracing the future with redefined industrial values”. I have always wanted to make Qixiang Tengda a world-class business that integrates the whole chemical industry chain, and I believe this is an achievable goal. In 2018, Qixiang Tengda’s development is sure to amaze us!
Cedar Cultural Tourism Group has consistently maintained a high level of competitiveness. Last year, construction projects were rolled out across the country, covering the entire industrial chain. The cultural tourism industry has fascinating stories to tell, but it requires huge investment and only provides returns over the long term, both of which are pain points that are yet to be addressed.
However, after examining and adjusting different business models in industries such as cultural tourism and real estate, Cedar Holdings has finally established a cultural tourism model that is different from any traditional one. We have concentrated our restructuring efforts within our tourist towns, thereby enabling Cedar Cultural Tourism Group to become a core brand of Cedar Holdings and a role model in China’s tourism industry in just over a year. I want our cultural tourism group to be the most professional tourist town operator in China. I also believe that sooner or later we will be crowned as “China’s Top Cultural Tourism Brand”.
King Vision Group has continued its trend of incredibly high performance. In 2017, it focused on the strategy of increasing industrial investment to enter core cities while expanding across the country, with intensive development in the Pearl River Delta and forays into central and western China. By restructuring the property sector, we have created a real estate business model that is unique to Cedar Holdings. This year, we will likely see the most stringent policy regulations yet on real estate and the fiercest competition of all time in the industry. However, we will continue to step up investment while following the central government’s requirements of “no speculation in the residential housing market” and “encouraging both housing purchase and renting”.
Cedar Community has developed an innovative and unique style of doing business, creating a clear-cut development approach. Thanks to this business model, the group has covered 30 cities across China through rapid expansion. The area of property under management has doubled and annual revenue is expected to quadruple compared with the previous year.
Although the smart and connected community service belongs to an industry with low profit margins, our restructuring efforts will turn Cedar Community into a profit center. In 2018, the group will grow into the largest community-based operator in China, driven by both external expansion and internal growth. It will also explore the smart city sector to add new growth centers in our property operations and will ultimately become the largest operator of smart city services in China.
Backed by the strong presence of Cedar Holdings, Cedar Finance has become one of the most outstanding players in the financial sector. I always stress that finance is a pillar of Cedar Holdings and industry and finance are complementary and mutually supportive. Our financial offerings are fundamentally different from those of our competitors. Strictly speaking, we are engaged in industrial finance, which is the foundation of Cedar Finance. This year Cedar Holdings has witnessed significant growth in all units, and Cedar Finance has played an important role in achieving this remarkable accomplishment. At the same time, the other industry groups in the Cedar Holdings family have also empowered Cedar Finance to make its landmark achievements this year. This is testament to the explosive energy provided by the combination of “industry + finance” and the incredible power of restructuring.
As we wrap up the first year of our five-year plan, we have every reason to be proud of our success so far and face the coming years with confidence. Thanks to the culture and strategy we have shaped and the potential we have pooled over the past year, Cedar Holdings, as the top-ranking private enterprise in Guangzhou, is closer to achieving the dream of becoming a world-class enterprise than ever before. What we have explored and accumulated over the past year has laid a solid foundation for us to realize our strategic goal of becoming a global leader.
On this historical high note, we embrace the second year of our five-year plan. All of our preparations are intended to take us another step further. Bright corporate prospects are combined with the powerful time and tide to create an unprecedented opportunity for Cedar Holdings in the spring of 2018. This year, we will make every day count as we strive to create a more better future.
