Gree Electric, Gree Group and gree real estate, three different ＂Gree＂, who are they？

Speaking of Gree, what’s your first impression?

Is it Dong Mingzhu’s stubborn face that comes to mind, or is it the bullish slogan of "mastering core technology" ringing in your ears, or is it the memory of the gambling contract between Miss Dong and Lei Jun that was all the rage?

Dong Mingzhu

Although in the public’s impression, "Gree" seems to be an inseparable whole with air conditioning and Dong Mingzhu, what you don’t know is that in fact, all behind the word "Gree" is not just air conditioning, nor just Dong Mingzhu, but three different "Gree":Gree Electric, gree real estate and Gree Group..

Today, because Gree Electric is the most famous city, people only know Gree Electric, but don’t know gree real estate and Gree Group. At present, there is almost no direct relationship between them except sharing the name and trademark of Gree. But time goes back 10 years, and the three are really a family.Simply put, Gree Electric and gree real estate were born out of Gree Group in the early days.

Gree group office building

Gree group

Gree Group is a 100% state-owned enterprise. According to public information, Gree Group was formerly known as Zhuhai Special Zone Industrial Development Corporation, which was established in 1985. At that time, the Industrial Development Corporation of the Special Economic Zone had two major companies, Zhuhai Special Economic Zone Guanxiong Plastic Co., Ltd. and Zhuhai Haili Air Conditioner Factory.

In 1990, with the approval of Zhuhai Municipal People’s Government, Gree Group was established. Its original name was Zhuhai Gree Group Company, with a registered capital of 1 million yuan, and the enterprise was collectively owned.

At the beginning of its establishment, Gree Group mainly engaged in trade, not air conditioning as we are familiar with. In 1991, Gree Group merged Zhuhai Special Economic Zone Guanxiong Plastic Co., Ltd. and Zhuhai Haili Air Conditioner Factory and renamed it Gree Air Conditioner Factory, which is the predecessor of Gree Electric. Later, in order to develop Zhuhai Beiling Industrial Zone, Gree Group successively established Zhuhai Gree Real Estate Co., Ltd. and Zhuhai Gree Real Estate Co., Ltd., which is the predecessor of gree real estate.

In 1992, Gree Group increased its registered capital to 170 million yuan, and it has 14 directly affiliated enterprises and 18 other joint ventures, including Gree Air Conditioning Factory and Gree Real Estate. At this time, Gree Group has basically formed the embryonic form of air conditioning and real estate.

In 2009, Gree Group was restructured into a limited liability company (wholly state-owned) and its name was changed to Zhuhai Gree Group Co., Ltd..

Gree Electric head office

gree electric appliances

After the merger of Guanxiong Plastic Co., Ltd. and Zhuhai Haili Air Conditioner Factory, the newly established Gree Electric is still an unknown small factory with only a crude production line with an annual output of only 20,000 window air conditioners. At that time, the chairman of Gree Electric was not Dong Mingzhu but Zhu Jianghong, and Dong Mingzhu was the business manager of East China. Under the leadership of Zhu Jianghong, Gree Electric has developed a series of marketable products, seized the market opportunities and initially established the brand image of Gree.

Subsequently, Gree Electric began to focus on quality, put forward the quality policy of "producing excellent products, creating famous brands, achieving scale and creating world-class level", implemented the "excellent product strategy", established and improved the quality management system, issued the "Twelve Banners for General Managers" and implemented the "Zero Defect Project". After several years of paying close attention to quality work, Gree products have achieved a qualitative leap in quality, laid the competitive advantage of Gree products in quality, created a famous brand "Gree" and established a good reputation among consumers.

In 1994, Dong Mingzhu began to be in charge of sales. With the innovative marketing model, the production and sales volume of Gree air conditioners jumped to the first place in the country in 1995. Subsequently, relying on Dong Mingzhu’s original "regional sales company" model, which is known as "a brand-new marketing model in the 21st century economic field", Gree Electric’s benefits have steadily increased year after year, and it stands out in the highly competitive home appliance industry.

In 1996, Gree Electric was successfully listed on Shenzhen Stock Exchange. In 2004, Gree Electric acquired subsidiaries such as Zhuhai Lingda and Gree Electric, and began to lay out the upstream and downstream industrial chains of air conditioners.

The real turning point in Gree Electric occurred in 2019. This year, Zhuhai decided to deepen the mixed reform of Gree Electric and transfer the state-owned shares of Gree Electric by publicly soliciting the transferee. Subsequently, Zhuhai Mingjun Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) led by Gao Ying and participated by Dong Mingzhu reached an agreement with Zhuhai SASAC, and Gree Group transferred 15% of its shares in Gree Electric to Zhuhai Mingjun at a price of 46.17 yuan/share.

Gaoying Capital Zhang Lei

After the completion of this transaction, Gree Group only holds 3.22% equity of Gree Electric, becoming an insignificant minority shareholder and Gree Electric becoming a listed company without actual controller. On the surface, Gao Yin became the major shareholder of Gree Electric, but in essence, Dong Mingzhu became the veritable "queen" of Gree Electric.

Gree Electric is no longer a state-controlled enterprise.

Gree real estate

Gree real estate

As one of the two listed entities under Gree Group, gree real estate’s origin can be traced back to the development of Zhuhai Beiling Industrial Zone by Gree Group.

Gree real estate’s core companies are Zhuhai Gree Real Estate Co., Ltd. and Zhuhai Gree Zhisheng Real Estate Co., Ltd., which are mainly responsible for commercial real estate development under Gree Group.

As a listed company, gree real estate’s predecessor is actually Xi ‘an Haixing Modern Technology Co., Ltd., a company listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 1999. Its relationship with Gree originated from a backdoor listing in 2008.

On September 18th, 2008, the listed company Xi ‘an Haixing Modern Science and Technology Co., Ltd. and Zhuhai Gree Group carried out major asset restructuring through asset replacement and non-public offering. Gree Group replaced all assets of Xi ‘an Haixing with its 100% equity of Zhuhai Gree Real Estate Co., Ltd. and Zhuhai Gree Zhisheng Real Estate Co., Ltd. except for retaining real estate and retaining liabilities.

In 2012, the company name was changed to "gree real estate Co., Ltd.", and gree real estate, as a listed company, officially appeared, and Gree Group was the major shareholder of gree real estate. However, the mother-child relationship between Gree Group and listed company gree real estate did not last long. In the same year, Dong Mingzhu became the chairman and legal representative of Gree Group.

In 2014, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Zhuhai requested Gree Group to inject 51.94% equity of gree real estate held by Gree Group into Zhuhai Investment, a wholly-owned company newly established by Zhuhai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. After the completion of the transaction, Zhuhai Investment replaced Gree Group as the major shareholder of gree real estate. Since then, Gree Group and gree real estate have officially parted ways.

Whose "Gree"?

On May 11th, 2022, according to CCTV financial news, when talking with Dong Mingzhu about the diversified development of Gree Electric, Dong Mingzhu said that she would never invest in finance and real estate, and said that gree real estate had nothing to do with her at all. Dong Mingzhu also said that gree real estate’s use of the Gree trademark did harm to Gree Electric.

It is not entirely true that Dong Mingzhu said that gree real estate had nothing to do with her. At least in 2012 -2014, gree real estate was an important holding company of Gree Group, and Dong Mingzhu, as the chairman and legal representative of Gree Group, definitely participated in the operation and management of important subsidiaries. Gree Electric, as the brother company of gree real estate, is at least related. Of course, after gree real estate and Gree Electric were stripped off successively, Gree Group, Gree Electric and gree real estate became almost completely independent subjects. Gree Group and gree real estate remain state-owned, while Gree Electric has become a real private enterprise.

The only connection between the three seems to be the trademark "Gree". Dong Mingzhu tucao gree real estate used Gree trademark to hurt Gree Electric, which is also the reason.

"Gree" trademark

According to the public inquiry information, at present, the applicants for both "GREE" and "GREE" trademarks are Gree Electric. However, based on the relationship among the three parties, in fact, GREE Group and gree real estate still use "Gree" and "GREE" at the name or font size level. I believe there are arrangements for trademark authorization among the three parties.

However, after the separation from gree real estate and Gree, Gree Group, the former Zhuhai State-owned No.1, gradually turned to be plain and ordinary, and transformed into a state-owned platform company with little characteristics. The main business scope has also become industrial investment, engineering construction, urban renewal and urban operation, which are similar to most state-owned platforms in China. However, for the Zhuhai government, the cash of 40 billion yuan from the sale of Gree Electric is undoubtedly sufficient ammunition for the development of other industries.