Continue enterprise reform
First, the current situation of the surviving enterprises
Since 1990s, state-owned enterprises have taken the way of separate reorganization to divest, reorganize and list their core business and related excellent assets, and the unlisted part is called surviving enterprises.
The problem of enterprise survival is largely the product of incomplete reform of state-owned enterprises. Due to the immature market system and imperfect supervision system, a considerable number of state-owned enterprises have adopted a separate restructuring plan without implementing their own restructuring, so as to "isolate" a large number of non-core businesses, low-profit assets and surplus personnel from the surviving enterprises in order to build "high-quality assets" that can meet the listing requirements. This approach meets the temporary needs of successful listing and financing of state-owned enterprises, but fails to fundamentally solve the problem, which makes the contradictions that must be directly faced in deepening the reform of state-owned enterprises focus on the surviving enterprises.
Second, the problem of surviving enterprises.
1. From the perspective of resource endowment. Since the birth of surviving enterprises, there have been many problems such as bad assets, redundant staff and heavy non-operating burden. First, when the assets of the main business are divested, reorganized and listed, the scale and quality of the assets received by the surviving enterprises are obviously not as good as that of the main business. Second, retirees, laid-off workers, and surplus staff of restructured enterprises mostly stayed in the surviving enterprises. As a result, the per capita assets of the surviving enterprises are obviously lower than the main business, and the viability of continuing operations is insufficient.
2. In terms of business characteristics. The businesses of the surviving enterprises all started and grew up under the special social and political background and economic conditions, and were attached to the auxiliary business or subsidiary business of the main business. It usually involves four types of business: first, auxiliary business with high requirements for professional and technical capabilities; Second, auxiliary business with certain professional and technical content but labor-intensive; Third, the "three industries" and diversified commercial services with basically no professional technical content and poor profitability; The fourth is other emerging businesses. From the perspective of business sources, the operating income of surviving enterprises mainly comes from related transactions with the first and second types of businesses of listed companies; The fourth type of business accounts for a low proportion of its operating income. From the perspective of business profitability, the profitability of the first and fourth types of businesses is good, and the surviving enterprises have relative advantages in terms of professional talents, but business development requires very high organizational and management innovation; The competitive pressure in the second and third types of business markets is great, and the profit of enterprises is subject to the enterprise system. Therefore, it is urgent to reform the operating mechanism and management system of the surviving enterprises.
3. From the management policy and management system. Different state-owned enterprises (groups) have different management policies and systems for surviving enterprises. Although some senior executives of state-owned enterprises are fully aware of the importance and urgency of standardizing the management of surviving enterprises and speeding up the reform, they can organically unify the dual tasks of the development of listed companies and the reform of surviving enterprises in corporate strategy. However, some state-owned enterprises are vacillating in business philosophy and lack of continuity in policies, which distorts the relationship between listed companies and surviving enterprises and causes a series of problems.
Third, accelerate the reform of the surviving enterprises.
Among the surviving enterprises, various contradictions left over from the reform of state-owned enterprises often erupt in concentration; Guidance, support and control policies for survival.
1. The increment of surviving enterprises should be strictly controlled. It is necessary to promptly correct the past stopgap measures, false restructuring, paper restructuring and other practices of state-owned enterprise reform, focus on surviving enterprises, strive to reform listed enterprises, and promote thorough reform without sequelae, so as to avoid adversely affecting the overall reform of state-owned enterprises. Overall restructuring is a better model, but it is not applicable to all state-owned enterprises. It is necessary to guide the restructured enterprises to appropriately slow down the pace of listing, and consider the overall listing financing after the internal restructuring and digestion of historical issues are basically in place; Enterprises whose internal organizational reform and management are not in place should not rush to go public, so as not to cause unnecessary increment of surviving enterprises.
In reality, when state-owned enterprises choose the restructuring and listing scheme, they are often influenced by the capital market and tend to be split and listed. From the perspective of investors and regulators, the relevant departments should weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the two goals of deepening reform, listing financing and improving corporate governance of super-large state-owned enterprises, and establish a more perfect mechanism to guide these enterprises to choose carefully between the two schemes of splitting listing and suspending listing (listing will be considered after system reform). In this process, we should fully consider the interests from within the enterprise that are contrary to the goal of deepening the reform of state-owned enterprises.
2. Accelerate the digestion of the stock of surviving enterprises. First, it is necessary to further digest the problems left over from history, separate the social functions of enterprises, properly arrange the diverted personnel, speed up the restructuring and transfer of negative-equity enterprises, and dispose of assets with unclear ownership and incomplete warrants in history. Second, it is necessary to straighten out the relationship between the main business and the surviving enterprises, speed up the market-oriented reform, and fully integrate the surviving enterprises with sustainable management ability into the product market and factor market (financing and employment) by stages and steps.
In the aspect of market-oriented reform, different reform ideas should be adopted for the surviving enterprises with different levels of property rights chain and different businesses. Judging from the current situation of surviving enterprises, we should first further shorten the industrial chain and shut down and transfer the third-and fourth-grade surviving enterprises engaged in competitive business (that is, the grandson company or great-grandson company of the group company). Secondly, according to the principle of specialization, the secondary enterprises are reorganized, strategic investors are introduced, and equity diversification is realized. Thirdly, there are two reform ideas for enterprises at the group level: with the continuous restructuring and splitting of subordinate enterprises, group companies will develop into holding companies, and when conditions are ripe, they can consider listing as a whole. Another way of thinking is that the group company or holding company with "virtual" function can consider withdrawing after the restructuring and reorganization of lower-level enterprises are in place and the whole transfer.
3. Strengthen standardization and control. In the operation of the reform of surviving enterprises, there are still problems that the restructuring process is controlled by insiders and the follow-up supervision of the reform is not in place. This phenomenon is more prominent in some state-owned enterprises (groups) with loose contact between group companies and subordinate enterprises. In addition, the restructured enterprises generally lack the protection mechanism of employees' rights and interests, the accountability mechanism and the remedial institutional arrangements after the restructuring failure. In view of these problems, relevant departments should improve policies and regulations, strengthen supervision, create an institutional environment, and ensure the smooth progress and orderly deepening of the reform of surviving enterprises.