Longyuan Construction: Strive to be the pioneer of reform and lead the new development of the industry

Whether it is a peninsula Mason who emerged in Maolu at the beginning of last century, a quality-oriented Xiangshan builder who grabbed the beach of Shanghai, or a leading enterprise in the transformation and upgrading of the construction industry under the new round of market expansion... Under the spring breeze of reform, Longyuan construction will never lack innovation and development.

Longyuan Construction, a private construction enterprise born in the 1980s, with a solitary courage, from Xiangshan to Shanghai, and then from Shanghai to the whole country and even the world... In 2017, the Group undertook nearly 50 billion yuan of business, ranking among the top 80 construction contractors in China.

With the pace of national reform and opening up, Longyuan, who came out of Xiangshan at the end of 1983, grew and developed continuously. In 34 years, in the eyes of Lai Zhenyuan, founder of the company, and Lai Chaohui, founder of the second generation of the company, it was the era that propelled Longyuan to take off all over the world. Entering PPP, perfecting the industrial chain in one body and two wings, Longyuan in the future will turn magnificently into "comprehensive service provider of urban investment, construction and operation" and "creator of a better life in the city".

Going out, the spring tide on the peninsula surges along the Huangpu River

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the spring breeze of reform and opening up blew to the coast of the East China Sea. In rural areas, land contract responsibility system is implemented, so that people in Peninsula can take good care of their own reserved land and have leisure time and rich labor force.

The Xiangshan Peninsula, which is near the East China Sea, is mainly financed by fisheries and agriculture. Because they are not rich, they support their livelihoods through construction. The construction capacity of folk projects is strong. Almost every social team has its own construction team. With the help of reform and opening-up, Dongfeng gradually stepped out of Xiangshan to undertake construction business in Hangzhou, Ningbo and other places.

In order to adapt to the situation of reform and opening-up, vigorously develop local economy in Xiangshan and support Township enterprises, the Xiangshan County Revolutionary Committee approved the establishment of "Xiangshan County Second Construction Engineering Company" on July 14, 1980, in the form of "Xiangshan County Second Construction Company", referred to as "Xiangshan Second Construction". At the end of 1983, Lai Zhenyuan led his team to rush to Shanghai, and the 34-year stormy journey of Longyuan's construction was opened.

In the winter of 1983, Shanghai was particularly cold.

"Xiangshan Second Construction" undertook a project of piling construction of seepage-proof wall of water diversion project in Baosteel, Shanghai. This project is in the river water of Wusongkou, Yangtze River. It needs to lay 27,000 piles 9 meters long and 40 centimeters thick to form a 5.7 kilometers long copper wall and iron wall, which is the only national key project in China at that time.

The construction team dare not neglect the arduous construction and the tense cycle. "Against the cold wind, we stood in the waist-deep River to drive piles. When the tide rises, climb ashore, the tide recedes, and then go down into the water to continue piling. Lai Zhenyuan recalled the situation at that time.

Everything comes to him who waits. The impervious wall of Baosteel was completed seven months ahead of schedule, with excellent quality, and saved more than 900,000 yuan in investment for Baosteel. The project was also awarded the National Quality Gold Award. Lai Zhenyuan has become a "knocking brick" to enter Shanghai, the largest construction market in China.

However, Lai Zhenyuan and his construction team had no way, no popularity and no strength at all. "It's hard to find a place with a corporate brand in Shanghai, let alone a fixed residence. Everyone lived in pigsty, cowshed, bathroom, or even an abandoned crematorium."

The cruelty of reality did not defeat Lai Zhenyuan. Over and over again, they took over projects and failed again and again... "In 1984, we finally took over a 190,000 yuan project of Shanghai Innovation Electric Machinery Factory with a building area of 2700 square meters. It should be said that this is the first start-up project of Longyuan construction. Lai Zhenyuan said that since then, he has been bidding for projects one after another, and gradually accumulated considerable credibility through strength and quality.

With the help of the spring breeze of Comrade Xiaoping's Southern Speech, Shanghai began "Pudong Development and Puxi Reform" in the early 1990s. Longyuan people seized the opportunity and developed rapidly by virtue of quality brand reputation. In 1993, the output value increased sharply from 80 million yuan last year to 260 million yuan, reached 518 million yuan in 1995, and became the first output value in Zhejiang Province to exceed 10 yuan in 1995. Billions of construction enterprises.

In 1995, the enterprise was restructured and renamed "Longyuan" in 1998. After that, Longyuan Group seems to inject a new impetus, gradually possessing five first-level qualifications of housing construction and municipal administration, installation, decoration, foundation and ancient gardens. Its business has expanded to more than 20 provinces, municipalities directly under the Central Government and autonomous regions in the country, and also covers them. Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and other overseas markets.

Under the leadership of Lai Zhenyuan, this private construction enterprise from the side of Xiangshan Port, after 34 years of hard work, from the initial undertaking business of more than 100,000 yuan to nearly 50 billion yuan today, from civilized construction site, observation project to Magnolia Award and Luban Award, ranked first in the comprehensive strength of Shanghai construction enterprises for 17 consecutive years. It has become the top 80 contractors in China and the top 500 private enterprises in China. It has made a brilliant contribution along the Huangpu River.

Triple Jump, Quality Career

In Shanghai, an absolutely mature but high-threshold city, it is necessary to have the capital to settle down if you want to get a firm foothold here.Throughout the 34 years since entering Shanghai, the development of Longyuan construction can be divided into three stages.

The first jump was in 1985. What impressed Lai Zhenyuan deeply was his second project.

In early spring and February that year, it was warm and cold at first. The 5-storey frame of the Physical and Chemical Building of Shanghai Second College of Education, which was built by Longyuan, has just cemented, and the Shanghai Engineering Quality Inspection Team has arrived.

Near the end of the inspection, someone suddenly pointed to a small red spot on a frame stigma and questioned it. Lai Zhenyuan did not say a word of excuse. He picked up the hammer and knocked on the pillar on the spot. He found that the red spot was a small piece of broken red brick which was carelessly mixed in when casting cement. There were many steel bars in the pillar. But the man said, "You are building buildings for Shanghai's institutions of higher learning, not farmhouses in the countryside of Xiangshan."

The project won the bid at the lowest price of 880,000 yuan. At that time, the price of building materials soared and the loss was fixed. Lai Zhenyuan's spirit and honest work style, regardless of cost and quality of death insurance project, have won the reputation and market for enterprises.

Also through this "red brick" incident, Lai Zhenyuan summed up two sentences in the process of strictly grasping the quality: public housing as a hotel, ordinary decoration high-level. So far, the concept of "quality business" has taken root in the hearts of Longyuan people.

With excellent quality, the construction of Longyuan ushered in the first great development.

By 1990, the team led by Lai Zhenyuan had won the first prize of quality management advanced units of construction enterprises in Shanghai and the highest prize of Shanghai Architecture "Magnolia Cup" for three consecutive years. In 1990, the completed area reached 118,000 square meters, the qualified rate was 100%, and the excellent rate was 54.7%.

But at the same time, Lai Zhenyuan found that the benefits did not go up, even the phenomenon of loss.

"The root is still in the system, the original implementation of three-level management, namely, the company-engineering team-site, the interests are shared, but the risk is only borne by the company. This system is flawed." Lai Zhenyuan introduced, so he began to reform, learn from the rural land contract responsibility system, implement the project contract responsibility system and continue to improve.

In 1989, Lai Zhenyuan took the project of Shanghai Quartz Sand Factory as a pilot project and tried to implement the "project contracting management responsibility system" with all the delegated responsibilities and rights. After the success, the project contracting management responsibility system was formally and comprehensively implemented in 1991. This new business model makes the situation of "good quality and poor efficiency" change immediately, and various undertaking projects come in succession. Reform and innovation have gradually made Longyuan Construction the leader in Shanghai's construction industry.

This reform has stirred the whole country and attracted the attention of the Ministry of National Construction. Gan Zhijian, then deputy minister, and Zheng Yijun, deputy minister, came to investigate and summarize the successful experience of the project contracting management responsibility system. In 1995, the project manager qualification management method was officially issued to promote the project manager responsibility system to the national construction enterprises.

The third leap is from industry to capital.

On May 24, 2004, Longyuan Construction finally landed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. "Listing gives our enterprises a greater platform for development, but also let us have more hope for the future." Lai Chaohui, the son of Lai Zhenyuan and President of Longyuan Construction, said.

It was precisely this year that Longyuan Construction obtained the super qualification, ranked first in the comprehensive strength of the construction enterprises entering Shanghai in the country, and won the bid of "the first tallest building" Pudong Global Financial and Trade Center. After the listing of enterprises, Longyuan Construction Group actively participated in the operation of the capital market, through the acquisition and other investment behavior, planned and step-by-step access to the upstream and downstream of the construction industry chain.

Entering PPP: Exploring Transition and Starting Again

For 34 years, the people of Longyuan cherished all the hardships and hardships. Lai Zhenyuan and Lai Chaohui, decision makers and managers of enterprises, have never stopped their bold transformation in the process of development. "Enterprise management, first and foremost stable, but also to keep pace with the times, seize the opportunity for development is very important."

As a family business inheriting his father's business, Lai Chaohui modestly expressed that he could not surpass his father's achievements in the field of construction. In 2006, Lai Zhenyuan was elected Vice President of the 4th Council of China Construction Industry Association. This is also the first person who holds this position among Chinese private entrepreneurs.

Lai Chaohui has been the general manager and vice chairman of the company since October 1996. Unlike his parents, Lai Chaohui has more experience in capital market and finance. As early as 2011, the company began to test the BT (Build Transfer) business of water infrastructure investment, trying to transform into a comprehensive construction service provider.

In September 2014, the State Council issued Opinion No. 43 on Strengthening Local Government Debt Management (Guofa [2014). It proposed that "the cooperation model between government and social capital should be popularized and used. The government should make investors have long-term and stable returns through the prior and open revenue agreement rules such as franchise, reasonable pricing and government subsidies." " This means that the country has begun to vigorously promote the PPP model.

Lai Zhenyuan and Lai Chaohui smelled business opportunities, immediately held a shareholders'meeting, and made a decision to set up a special infrastructure investment company and enter the PPP market in an all-round way. Shortly after the tight layout, the PPP Center of the Ministry of Finance was established on December 2, 2014. On December 8, Longyuan Mingcheng Investment Management (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Longyuan Group, was also established. Lai Chaohui became the chairman of the board, and gathered a strong team to fully distribute the PPP business and actively seek to collect it. The transformation of the profit model of the group company will accelerate the strategic transformation of the enterprise.

In September 2015, Longyuan Group acquired 60% of Hangzhou City Investment Construction through Hangzhou Property Exchange. A new strategic pattern of "one body, two wings" has been formed. The "Party A" thinking of the construction team of Hangzhou City Investment Completely makes up for the shortcoming of "Party B" thinking of Longyuan as a construction enterprise.板，可谓PPP转型过程中的天作之合。至此，也形成以4166金沙总站为主体、龙元明城和杭州城投建设为两翼的“一体两翼”格局。

2015年9月，公司中标全国首个会展类PPP项目——福建省晋江市国际会展中心，实现了PPP项目零的突破。从此之后，公司走上了PPP快速发展期，截止目前，集团累计中标PPP项目63个，累计总投资额740多亿元，名列全国民营企业前茅。

尽管这中间也存在“坐上过山车”般的波澜起伏，但赖朝晖与团队一路所向披靡。

目前明城公司和杭州城投建设员工超过350人，加上PPP区域市场总部、各PPP市场部等，龙元集团专业从事PPP的不下500人。这样的团队规模，在全国也不多见。 除此以外，公司构筑覆盖全国的市场网络也日趋完善。截至去年年底，中标PPP项目的省份达15个，跟踪洽谈项目涉及80%以上省份。公司组建了8个市场团队、8个区域市场总部、17个市场部，初步形成了广泛覆盖的PPP市场网络。

美好愿景，打造城市投资建设运营综合服务商

在进入PPP领域初期，龙元集团就明确了自身定位：打造中国领先的PPP全生命周期投资建设运营服务平台。通过1+1+1+1>4的资源整合，为政府提供高效优质的服务。对于集团未来的发展，赖朝晖表示，转型升级一直是企业的主旋律。

根据《龙元建设战略规划（2018-2020年）》，未来三年，将从目前施工总承包和PPP两翼齐飞，逐步转到‘城市投资建设运营综合服务商’的定位上来，成为城市美好生活、幸福生活的创造者。

具体来说，龙元建设将始终聚焦于城市投资、建设及运营服务业务，通过一体化发展、平台化运作，整合内外部资源，完善城市功能，提升城市品质，不断提高城市服务水平，增强城市居民的幸福感和获得感。

到2020年末，力争实现净资产规模和利润明显提升，业务涵盖包括以PPP投资、建设、运营为主体的投资板块，以设计、总承包、钢结构、幕墙及建筑产业化为主体的建设板块，以运营、维护和城市管理业务为主体的运营板块，以及以私募基金等金融业务为主体的金融板块这四大板块。

要成为一个合格的“城市投资建设运营综合服务商”和“城市美好生活的创造者”，意味着龙元将加大城市基础设施和公共事业领域业务的拓展。

不过，根据赖朝晖的观察，2016年开始，PPP项目的竞争进入白热化状态，出现了一些伪PPP，但公司不忘初心、规范自律，坚持原则，做到“不入库的项目不做，采购流程不合规的项目不做，有融资硬伤的项目不做”。

“碰壁了我们绕道走，与政府部门、金融机构保持良好沟通，做好风险控制，降低项目融资风险。”赖朝晖说，“规范是国家的要求、市场的需要，更是我们民营企业生存的底线。”

虽说当前的投资领域以PPP为主，但这绝不意味着龙元建设放弃其他领域的投资。赖朝晖表示，一方面，PPP是现阶段政府推动基础设施建设的最佳手段，且龙元早已抢占制高点，并已全面参与城市投资、建设、运营的各个领域。另一方面，对于和集团战略方向相吻合、对提升业务专业能力有帮助的产业上的投资机会，也需要挖掘。

创新和发展是龙元建设稳步前行不变的主题。面对新形势、新常态，龙元建设将积极调整自身业务结构，提高业务能力，夯实基础管理，创新管理机制，适应新的变化与挑战。

“完善自己的产业链，提升集团全领域、全周期的服务能力。但需要强调一点，无论做什么领域的投资尝试，都要牢牢把控风险，不能超出自身能力盲目冒进。”

“未来，我们为人民美好生活而奋斗。”赖朝晖说。

（原文刊载于《象山信息港》）