Several investment traps

Policy opportunities are one of the most favored investment directions for China enterprises. From a global perspective, the adjustment of policy direction and the introduction of new policies have also had a great impact on related industries, and even made many well-known multinational enterprises. A large number of private enterprises along the coast of China have made full use of the opportunity of the national reform and opening-up policy, which constitutes the most dynamic economic region in China. However, the blind pursuit of policy opportunities often leads venture capitalists to step into the policy investment trap step by step without preparation.

In March 2002, the Provisional Regulations on the Establishment of Retail Drugstores in Guangdong Province announced the opening of Guangdong's drug retail market. Due to the large foreign population and huge development space of pharmaceutical retail industry, many foreign businessmen flocked to invest in Guangdong pharmaceutical retail market. However, in just a few months, under the policy ban, some investors suffered heavy losses and suffered.

In Dongguan, the world-famous export-oriented processing base in the Pearl River Delta, the US Food and Drug Administration not only strictly implemented the approval standard of "No second retail pharmacy within 500 meters" implemented in June 20001year (the standard was cancelled in July 2002), but also set up technical regulations. For example, the person in charge of the branch must submit the original personal household registration book, and must go to the neighborhood Committee where the original household registration is located to issue a certificate that there is no legally defective product record and a certificate of marriage and childbirth.

Similar policies and regulations include: in some places, private schools must buy 200 mu of land and have 6,000 books to apply; The qualifications for applying for private telecom value-added services include venues, equipment and professionals ... and investment in this area does not mean that investors must be qualified to start a business.

In these industries, investors may be deeply involved because they have taken the first step (meeting the previously known reporting conditions). From the perspective of supervision, these requirements are logical, but from the perspective of businessmen, if "qualified investment" is made before applying for business qualifications, the risk will be greatly increased. Moreover, once the reporting conditions change, the investors' initial investment will be wasted.

On September 15, 2002, the Regulations on the Implementation of the Drug Administration Law was formally implemented, and the new Measures for the Administration of Drug Registration was brewed into the seventh draft. The new policy has set up a five-year monitoring period for the declaration of new drugs, during which only one variety can be approved for marketing. Prior to this, because the imitation of foreign new drugs was protected, the cost of R&D was low (only 654.38 yuan+20,000-20 million yuan, while the R&D of a foreign patented drug needed 300-500 million dollars), investors flocked to the pharmaceutical industry. After the introduction of the new policy, domestic pharmaceutical companies not only reported fewer new drugs, but also developed fewer products.

After China's entry into WTO, due to the commitment to intellectual property protection and the consideration of improving the legal system, it will enter an extraordinary period of major adjustment of policies and regulations. Enterprises will encounter more similar policy adjustments, and some investment projects that are highly dependent on policies will face an embarrassing situation once they are adjusted. In addition to the industry approval restrictions of policies, the risks brought by policy changes to investors, including the adjustment of urban planning, the time difference, spatial difference and poor implementation of policies, will all become investment traps.

In order to avoid policy traps, it is important not to rely too much on policies. Among the foreign-funded enterprises invested in China, investors from Singapore and South Korea met with policy traps and failed, while relatively few investors from Europe and the United States. The main reason is that European and American enterprises are less attracted by preferential policies in the investment process, and pay more attention to the local market environment and the market prospect of the project itself.

In view of the policy trap, the suggestions for venture capitalists are:

2. Don't be greedy and cheap, and you can't ignore other conditions of investment because of favorable policies;

3. Improve the application level of policies, don't put all your money on policy business opportunities, but invest according to your own strength;

4, the policy application is appropriate, don't overdo it, pay attention to policy changes. Enterprises are animals in the market. Once the market ecological environment is destroyed, the survival of enterprises will be in jeopardy. In the investment behavior of enterprises, the market barriers of monopoly sector is a huge investment trap.

In July, 2002, Deng Jianguo, movie mogul publicly announced his retirement from the film and television industry, and claimed that about 60% of private film and television companies would close down by the end of the year. One of the direct reasons for Deng Jianguo's withdrawal is that the film and television drama market is imperfect, and there are unfair competitions such as monopoly and price limit. Only the TV station owes the superstar company 20 million yuan, which is fatal to the company. This is also a common phenomenon in the circle, but film and television companies are not willing to offend their filmmakers. "

200 1 A private accounting firm in a western province received a merger audit case. After a lot of investigation and evidence collection, I was suddenly told that the entrustment was cancelled, which made the accounting firm confused. Afterwards, I learned that the failure of this order was only because they were not "taken care of" when the Finance Bureau wrote off bad debts. Although all intermediaries have been decoupled from administrative units, a considerable number of institutions are still inextricably linked with administrative departments? The entrusting party finally handed over this business to the accounting firm run by the former director of the Finance Bureau.

At present, monopoly industries such as municipal environmental protection, tap water, film and television, education, natural gas, telecommunications and banking, and intermediary industries such as law firms, audit firms and accounting firms all have such non-market competition traps to varying degrees. For example, the recent case in which a securities firm underwrites a rights issue for a listed company and "turns into a shareholder", and is caught in financial shortage or loss-making sales, is not so much caused by fierce market competition as by the unequal status of the securities firm and the listed company.

Two years later, it was originally expected that the total annual demand would reach 654.38+0.2 billion pieces, and the fast tableware market with potential sales of not less than 3 billion yuan turned out to be the Waterloo of green tableware. Due to the high price of environmentally-friendly tableware, a large number of catering enterprises still illegally use disposable foamed plastic tableware and later listed "environmentally-friendly" substitutes despite the national ban? Disposable PP tableware. At present, there are about 170 green tableware production enterprises in China, of which about 2/3 have stopped production (waiting for production), and there are basically no enterprises that produce at full capacity three times a day. Some enterprises that can barely start work have stopped production or closed down due to lack of liquidity or other operational reasons, and no more than 20 enterprises were able to maintain normal production in the second half of last year.

The reason behind the repeated prohibition of "white devils" is actually that investors have fallen into the human environment trap of new industries. A large number of small catering enterprises live on small profits, and the consideration of cost is far greater than the awareness of environmental protection.

In the market analysis before venture capital, the investigation of human environment is an extremely important part. The financing environment, personnel's cultural quality, market consumption habits and the openness of the government constitute an important humanistic environment for enterprises to invest and operate. Once an enterprise does not integrate with it, it will spend a lot of money to make adjustments. Novelty projects are not accepted by consumers, the corporate cultures of both sides are not integrated in the merger and acquisition, and local protectionism is encountered, all of which expose the inadaptability of the project to the human environment. There is only one best way to adapt to the human environment: keep a respectful distance from others.

Pursuing high technology has become a fashion nowadays. Enterprises often have the impulse to pursue high technology in their investment behavior in order to maintain their unique advantages and core competitiveness. But once they don't grasp high technology properly, it will become the main reason to subvert the whole investment behavior.

When a pharmaceutical factory in Zhongyuan invested in project design, it positioned its technology at the "international advanced level" and introduced the technology and four sets of production devices that were still in the experimental stage from a small engineering company in Switzerland. Results There were serious problems in three of the four sets of production devices, and the products could not be produced normally. The main reason for the failure of pharmaceutical companies' investment is blind pursuit of international advanced technology, high-priced introduction of foreign technology that is still in the experimental stage, and then missed the opportunity to use domestic technical strength to tackle key problems and seize the market.

A private engineering company in the west is keenly aware that the coating market is leaderless, with low competitive means and huge market space, so it cooperates with a local research institute under the Ministry of Military Industry, which makes technical investment and cooperates to develop the market. After several years of operation and tens of millions of investment, the quality problems of the coatings produced are still emerging, and their products simply cannot open the market. The technology of the institute is not mature technology. But the company has invested a lot of money in the paint market.

Technology trap and talent trap are especially easy for investors who are new to an industry to step into. This trap has a common feature: enterprise management needs, easy to obtain from the market, so investors do not pay attention to it, but it is very difficult to judge whether it is appropriate, which often becomes the key to the success or failure of entrepreneurial projects.

In order to avoid the trap of technology and talents, entrepreneurs should strive to:

2. For the new technology that is still in the experimental stage, it must be put into production from small test to pilot test and then to small test;

3. Don't blindly follow experts and consultants, trust them, but verify them;

4, technology and talent investment should be adapted to the enterprise scale and investment ability, to meet the needs of the target market as the main standard, too high or too low technology and talent requirements are not appropriate;

For investors entering new industries, the criteria for judging whether talents are suitable are: whether they have considerable experience, second, their reputation in enterprises and industries, third, their historical achievements, and finally, whether their personal temperament is integrated with corporate culture. The criteria for judging whether the technology is applicable are similar.