Fosun Hive: World Leading Hive City Practitioner
Release time:2018-12-31
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Looking back on 2018, Fosun Hive has complied with Fosun’s strategy, continuously strengthened its reach of industry and improved its business layout. From “Fosun Property” to “Fosun Hive”, we seek to attach more emphasis on industrial attribute than in the past. Traditionally, the concept of property is more focused on its physical state in terms of context, while the tactics of “hive” much stresses its industrial attribute. The line between the physical contexts of industry and property is gradually disappearing. Hive focuses more on the empowerment of industry based on a physical platform such as property. As an important part of the entire industry value chain, property should not be split off from the overall landscape. The development of Hive is to have its unique product connotation and industrial attribute in an industrialized physical context, coupled with the composition of a value chain which allows the interactions among people, things and supply chains etc..
Fosun emphasizes the in-depth integration of industrial investment and industrial operations, and the “Hive City” strategy held by Fosun Hive for years is just a practical example of this concept. “Hive City” is one of the core strategies of Fosun Hive, as well as a successful practice of “Industrial Investment + Industrial Operations”. We have continued to use the M&A means of extensional expansion to capture mega hive projects around the world. At the same time, we have extensively collected and acquired top-level IP resources in various industries worldwide, such as financial services, healthcare, culture & entertainment, travel & leisure, logistics & wholesale and infrastructure, so as to improve the operational capability of asset-light properties and enable better implementation of mega Hive projects. Fosun Hive’s vision is to become the world leading hive city practitioner, and our core strategy is hive cities and global landscape.
“Hive” strives to provide competitive Hive products, highly integrating with industry. Ultimately, it is necessary to confidently polish every detail on the operational level, like what a craftsman does. Take our 28 Liberty in New York as an example. Formerly One Chase Manhattan, 28 Liberty is a landmark of New York Downtown since the 1960s. From reconstruction to leasing, to the opening of the plaza to the public which gradually became an Internet celebrity premise for events in downtown, and then to the opening of high-end restaurant Manhatta, which was built on the top of the 60th floor in collaboration with Danny Meyer, an influencer in New York’s catering industry, every detail had been carefully researched and polished again and again. 28 Liberty is starting to make a name for itself in New York. It is not only a fully functional office building, but also the first choice of venues for many high-end indoor and outdoor events in New York.
Another example would be Hokkaido TOMAMU, our tourist hive project in Japan, which was incorporated into the Fosun ecosystem by the end of 2015. The resort covers an area of 5 million square meters, boasting the world-class ski resort. The successful acquisition of the project brought together the joint efforts of One Fosun teams including Fosun Hive (formerly Fosun Property), IDERA, Yuyuan Inc., Foliday and Club Med. Based on Hoshino’s existing Hokkaido Resort, the teams introduced Club Med, the world’s top resort management group, to create a co-brand resort in Tomamu, Hokkaido, which becomes more attractive to families. TOMAMU has a golf course, a ski track, restaurants, a shopping mall, the largest indoor swimming pool in Japan, and the Chapel on the water designed by famed Japanese architect Tadao Ando. It is also the most sought-after wedding venue in Japan.
Fosun Hive has a widely recognized track record of global expansion. Over the past years, Fosun Hive has accumulated rich experience in overseas platforms, and vertical industrial operations. Its overseas investment and global experience can be summarized as the “Glocal” model: the so-called Glocal is a balanced allocation, which requires the building of both local teams and a global team that empowers local teams through the strong expertise of the headquarters.
First of all, find the right people and an excellent team. After setting up a perfect platform and striving to control shares, we have achieved the empowerment through the allocation of high-quality resources within the system and thus achieved the integration of Fosun’s global resources. At the same time, we have established a partnership mechanism. Fosun has more than 30 global partners around the world, and Fosun Hive has 14 partners worldwide, two of which are from Hive’s Japanese and British platform companies. One is Mr. Takuya Yamada from IDERA in Japan, and the other is Mr. Robert Laurence from Resolution Property in London. At Fosun, the culture we admire is the use of truly localized teams that penetrate deeply into the local market to help the business grow. Hive’s teams are constantly upgrading, and the extent of Glocal is also deepening.
Secondly, establish an efficient and rapid decision-making response mechanism. Once the strategic direction is determined, daily operational decisions are mainly made and closed by local teams. When it comes to important strategic decisions or investment decisions, local teams will submit them to the board for decision.
Thirdly, attach importance to cross-cultural management. Our teams are made up of local colleagues and those with Chinese cultural background who can embrace cross-regional culture for win-win cooperation. Fosun believes that the truly talented must have an entrepreneurial spirit and a good attitude, and seek common ground while reserving differences on the basis of this consensus. In achieving the integration of global teams, we must first avoid “two extremes”, i.e. extreme localization or extreme HQ-orientation. We have gradually developed a hierarchical structure of partners in the team. Secondly, with the project as a lever, we have fostered mutual trust and achieved integration step by step by working together and overcoming challenges together. Thirdly, we have aligned our cultural values. The alignment of values is a two-way process of absorption. The newly added local platforms will also modify, refine and innovate Fosun’s values. For example, after the Japanese team joined us, we have greatly improved our work delivery accuracy. The addition of the European and American platforms has also enhanced our innovation in finance model.
Fourthly, respect operating practices of local markets. For example, French listed companies require at least 40% females in the board of directors; the U.S. companies have no “probationary period”. As such, we must adapt to the local markets and have a better understanding of them.
What’s more, globalization does not equal to overseas-oriented, it also includes further deepening in the Chinese region, which means further integration of overseas industrial resources, business models and operational cultures with China in the context of globalization. For example, we have more than 3 million square meters of commercial property in China that need to be managed. In the past, China has not focused on the management of stock commercial property, so we need to learn from the experience of Tokyo, London and New York in the management of stock assets so as to create synergy. Secondly, globalization is a cyclical capital allocation process. We must always stay vigilant, seize opportunities and adapt to the changing world according to the macro policy.
The global layout of Fosun Hive is mainly divided into three layers. The first is core countries and cities, mainly in developed countries in Europe and America. The second is key countries and cities, including Japan, Korea and Singapore in Asia, and the West of the U.S., Northern Europe and Southern Europe. The third is important countries and cities, including Brazil, Russia, India, and countries and cities in Africa, which are emerging countries and cities. Currently, the first two layers of the layout have been completed.
In 2019, Hive will focus on emerging countries and cities, especially India, Indonesia and Africa. In terms of expansion form, Hive is considering taking residential development as an entry point, incubating industrial capabilities, synergizing domestic resources to implement dimension descent, and establishing a hive system covering the entire industry chain in emerging markets. At the same time, Hive will rely on Fosun’s own strong financial endowments and accumulations to facilitate the operations of banking, insurance and securities industries. Besides, FintTech will be leveraged to address the pain points in local national economic development in African markets, among others, and to identify expansion opportunities in logistics, technological innovation, resources and other sectors.
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