Author: Zhao Yichuan Source: Business figures (ID: biz-leaders) There has recently been an addition to the live broadcast delivery track. His name is Zhou Zhengyi. A few days ago, he appeared in the live broadcast room with Yu Wenhong, a well-known medical beauty Internet ce

In the field of live broadcast sales, there has been an addition recently.

His name is Zhou Zhengyi. A few days ago, he appeared in the live broadcast room with Yu Wenhong, a well-known medical beauty Internet celebrity, saying that he would launch a live broadcast to help farmers. It was just about selling goods and there was no gimmick, so the two engaged in some courtship during the live broadcast. Zhou Zhengyi expressed that he wanted to marry each other, while Yu Wenhong looked surprised and shy.

was a bit embarrassing to perform.

Zhou Zhengyi is 63 years old. More than 20 years ago, he once had a resounding title - the richest man in Shanghai, but later he was imprisoned and has since faded out of the business world. When came back this time, I didn’t expect that the “richest man” would end up selling goods via live broadcast.

Although he is no longer young, this former boss is dressed fashionably and has a desire for expression. He must be eager to keep up with the times. The tycoon who was passionate about real estate and played with capital in the past is now planning to sell agricultural products in the live broadcast room, which must be said to be a bit inconsistent.

Sure enough, in order to make some quick money, no matter how proud you are, you can bend your body.

Zhou Zhengyi comes from an ordinary family. His highlight moments in the business can be traced back to the late 1990s and the beginning of the new century. In just a few years, his business territory expanded rapidly, his personal wealth soared like a rocket, and he became a top rich man from a grassroots background. However, the good times did not last long, and this wealth empire collapsed at a faster speed.

Regarding the history of Zhou Zhengyi’s fortune, some facts are difficult to examine in detail. In his personal narration and external packaging, this is a story of boldly joining the tide of the times and fighting in the market economy. On the other side, there is gray, gambling, and even illegal crimes. These together constitute the background of Zhou Zhengyi's life.

If you want to find a point in time, 1994 is particularly meaningful to Zhou Zhengyi. Early media reports regarded him as one of the first self-employed people in China and the first generation of gold diggers to go abroad. Before 1994, Zhou Zhengyi did small business, went to Japan, and opened a restaurant. He was in the business field very early. . In 1994, he and his business partner (also his partner) bought a 5-story building on Huanghe Road in Shanghai and opened a high-end restaurant. From then on, he began to rise rapidly.

In the popular TV series "Flowers", Mr. Bao, who speculates in stocks, and the storm on the Yellow River impressed the audience deeply. As for Zhou Zhengyi, some people regard him as the prototype of this TV series.

In the early 1990s, Zhou Zhengyi was mainly engaged in industry. At that time, he was considered a large group of self-employed individuals in Shanghai, but he was still far from the title of the richest man. After joining the Yellow River Road, he had an active mind and courage, and set his sights on the more exciting stock market.

The first was the craze for the listing and circulation of employee shares of state-owned enterprises. Zhou Zhengyi seized on the mentality of employees who were more willing to hold cash instead of stocks, and purchased such employee shares at low prices on a large scale, and then sold them at high prices in the stock market for arbitrage. It is said that he invested all his money and made hundreds of millions in profit from the first war.

Opening a restaurant is certainly profitable, but in comparison, the return on capital is even more amazing. This also further stimulated Zhou Zhengyi’s ambition to dominate the capital market.

In 1997, the financial crisis swept Hong Kong. Zhou Zhengyi and his partners took decisive action again, buying up shares of Li Ka-shing companies in a sluggish market. When the stock market rebounded, they had a bumper harvest. It was also in this year that Zhou Zhengyi established Shanghai Nongkai Development Group, which evolved into the famous "Nongkai Group". Zhou also quickly transformed from a self-employed businessman into a capital hunter.

In addition to stock speculation, Zhou Zhengyi’s capital map at that time also had an important link - copper futures trading. At that time, Nongkai Group had a fixed trading seat on the Shanghai Futures Exchange. From 1998 to 2000, Zhou Zhengyi's company conducted arbitrage trading on the London Futures Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange, and the returns were quite generous. In addition, copper trade has another benefit - obtaining US dollars through the issuance of external letters of credit through the electrolytic copper import trade has become an important channel for Zhou's financing expansion.

Zhou Zhengyi, who has been searching for gold in the capital market, has not forgotten to engage in industry. However, during this period, the small business was no longer satisfactory, and he decided to enter real estate.

In 1997, the Shanghai real estate market was still at its pre-eruption low ebb. Zhou Zhengyi purchased an unfinished project on Jiangning Road at a price of more than 6,000 yuan per square meter. After it was completed and renovated, he made a huge bet on the appreciation in the future. After 1999, Shanghai's real estate market took off, and a series of construction projects made it a hot spot for real estate investment. Zhou Zhengyi quickly jumped into this trend, acquired land on a large scale, and became a real estate tycoon.

According to later revelations and analysis, during this period Zhou Zhengyi played the "capital + real estate" game very skillfully. He first obtained a large number of projects in Shanghai, then mortgaged loans, used the loans to acquire listed companies, and then injected real estate projects into the listed companies for financing. , and cycle like this. In this mode, Zhou can achieve leveraged expansion using the "white wolf with nothing" approach.

The business is getting bigger and bigger, and the net worth is getting higher and higher. At the age of 36, Zhou Zhengyi bought the first Ferrari car in Shanghai, which became a hot news. By 2002, he already owned four listed companies and was listed on the Forbes rich list, making him a wealthy man.

However, after the highlights, it quickly went downhill.

Zhou Zhengyi’s business actually relies heavily on so-called resources, that is, funds and connections. These played a key role in his fortune. The high-end restaurant on Yellow River Road was a public relations place for him to make friends with all kinds of influential people, and it was always crowded. Among Zhou Zhengyi's circle of friends, Liu Jinbao, then president of Bank of China Hong Kong, was an important one. Liu Jinbao was investigated in 2003 for illegally granting loans to Zhou's companies. This became a heavy blow that destroyed Zhou Zhengyi's business empire. In 2003, in view of the overheating of the market, relevant departments in Shanghai introduced new regulations - real estate developers must pay the full amount at one time when purchasing land plots. This caused a sudden increase in financial pressure for many developers who want to enclose land.

Zhou Zhengyi is not having an easy time either. His company has no obvious signs of starting construction on the four plots of land in the city center. The lending banks he had dealings with began to have doubts. The Liu Jinbao incident has intensified this speculation. This seemingly prosperous rich man is actually in a tight financial situation.

In the past six years since the establishment of Nongkai Group, a number of related companies have been established around this core. The relationships are intricate and confusing. Many of them were established by Zhou Zhengyi in the name of his relatives. These companies guarantee and counter-guarantee each other, and they do not hesitate to fabricate their business and obtain large amounts of loans from many banks. These methods made Zhou Zhengyi successful, but they also created hidden dangers.

Just in 2003, Zhou Zhengyi was sentenced to three years in prison for manipulating securities trading prices and falsely reporting registered capital. He is 42 years old this year. The "Nongkai system" gradually collapsed. The circle of friends from the past failed to save him. In 2006, he was released from prison, but soon fell into another case and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. This business tycoon has completely fallen into decline since then.

From rise to fall, Zhou Zhengyi’s past is intertwined with various elements of the development of the times and personal expansion, and can be called a footnote of a business era. During the years he was serving his sentence in prison, the outside business world had changed a lot, with the rise and fall of influential figures, and new stories of rise and fall, which may be strange but familiar to him.

Now, an old boss wants to make a comeback, and he has found a so-called shortcut. In the footage, the friend who fought together on the Yellow River Road has disappeared, but Zhou Zhengyi has played the role of confessing his love again, which is really disappointing.