This article from the micro-channel public number: New Culture Business (ID: Ent-Biz), Author: Zhou Yan, Yu Qian, Amy Wang, topic map: Vision China
The aftershocks of the thunderstorm at Eggshell Apartments have already affected all colleagues in long-term rental apartments.
On the evening of November 27th, Ziru’s online customer service released a message to users: In the payment method of signing Haiyan plan, Ziruo installment and easy payment will be suspended on November 27. Users who have signed Haiyan will not be affected and can still pay paragraph.
Notice issued by the customer service of the Ziru APP machine
The so-called “Haiyan Project” is a housing preferential program that provides benefits for fresh graduates in the name of Ziruo. It claims that graduates have 0 deposits and the annual rent can be paid monthly. In fact, it is a loan that Ziruo cooperates with WeBank. The business is aimed at fresh graduates who are under pressure to rent.
Does it sound familiar? Yes, this is exactly the same as the “rental mortgage” of the eggshell apartment that just thundered. The housekeeper pays no deposit every year, rebates interest, discounts on service fees and many other preferential items to induce young graduates to sign contracts. In addition, free and egg Behind the shell is the same lending bank-WeBank.
The background of WeBank is not unfamiliar to everyone. It is a domesticThe first private bank to open was initiated and controlled by a number of well-known companies such as Tencent, Baiyeyuan and Liye. Its main business is various private “micro loans”. The “Xiaodai” on WeChat is the representative of WeBank. product.
WeBank’s revenue is staggering. According to financial report data, revenues in 2017, 2018, and 2019 were 6.748 billion yuan, 10.29 billion yuan, and 14.87 billion yuan; net profits were 1.448 billion yuan and 2.474 billion yuan respectively. RMB 3.95 billion, and the media reported that nearly RMB 2 billion is paid a year.
The recent series of news such as the thunderstorm in long-term rental apartments and the huge profit collection of “micro-finance loans” have also pushed WeBank to the forefront.
The self-media “Inspector Diancai” calculated in its article that the interest rate of Ziru Rent Loan can be as high as 15.8%, which is higher than the highest protection limit of private lending interest rate issued by the National Supreme Court (LPR 4 times, about 15%) ), revealing the tip of the iceberg of WeBank’s huge profits.
Compared with high interest rates, Ent-Biz conducted interviews with nearly ten users of eggshells and free rental loans, as well as investigations into signing contracts and marketing materials, and found that these long-term rental apartments The financial routines are almost the same, with the following commonalities:
1. Targeting young people with less financial resources (mainly graduates);
2. Induce users to choose the annual rent and monthly installment method to sign an agreement with WeBank through various discounts;
3. Most users are not informed that they are signing loan agreements and do not understand the credit risk involved;
4. More than 95% of users will directly check “Agree” and will not read the full text of the electronic loan agreement one by one.
How is the “long-term rental apartment + finance” network weaving together?
Take the eggshell as an example, disassemble it.
According to the communication and combing with the renter, we can infer the contracting process of the “rental loan” of Eggshell Apartments:
1. Sign the “House Rental Contract”;
2. The rent is a pledge of one payment for three, or a “rental loan” with a mortgage of one payment and a preferential rent. The housekeeper recommends a “rental loan”;
3. Sign the “Loan Contract” online and open a designated account;
4. Pay 1 month’s rent and 1 month’s equivalent rent deposit online;
5. Pay monthly rent payment (actually the principal repayment of the loan) and pay management fees and service fees (interest) online.
First Step: Enclosure
First talk about the parent company of “Eggshell Apartment”-“Qingwutong Co., Ltd.”. (Please remember the word “Indus”, the latter word will appear many times.) “PHOENIX TREE HK HOLDINGS LIMITED” is the parent company of “PHOENIX TREE HK HOLDINGS LIMITED”. It is a Hong Kong company. Specific information is not available. All I know is that it is again held by a company called “PHOENIX TREE HOLDINGS LIMITED” with 1HKD 100%.
And Qingwutong holds 100% shares in 9 apartment management companies. These 9 companies represent 9 cities with “eggshell apartments”. These 9 companies are mainly responsible for the rental of “eggshell apartments” in various cities, communication between landlords and tenants, and property management.
Simply put, it is to deploy a connection between landlord and tenantPlatform, complete the first step of enclosure.
Step 2: Planting leeks
Qingwutong holds 100% shares in 6 technology limited companies, and “Ziwutong (Beijing) Asset Management Co., Ltd.” holds 50% shares in 2 technology limited companies.
These 8 technology companies are mainly responsible for technology promotion. What is this concept? If you are walking on the road, when considering renting a house or watching videos, all the advertisements, information, and news related to “Eggshell Apartments” are produced and operated by these companies. At the same time, the construction of the online rental port allows tenants to easily and easily sign a house lease contract, sign a rent loan, and pay rent for each period.
Why do many people directly consider choosing “eggshell apartments” when renting a house, and then consult and sign contracts, and find the whole process very convenient and quick. The overwhelming marketing makes more people feel that “Eggshell Apartment” is a big company and the best choice, which is the so-called “planting leeks.”
The third step: One-stop service that keeps the fertilizer from flowing out of the field
In addition to “enclosure” and “planting leeks,” “Eggshell Apartment” also has a one-stop service for apartment services.
GreenWutong holds 100% shares of Beijing Menglifang Decoration Engineering Co., Ltd., 60% shares of Beijing Baijiaxiu Trading Co., Ltd., and several small and micro enterprises invested as minority shareholders. And 5 property management limited companies and hotel management limited companies that are heavily held by “PHOENIX TREE HK HOLDINGS LIMITED”. These companies will uniformly purchase decoration materials for the landlord’s rental houses, carry out decoration, maintenance, and management. In general, the “Eggshell Apartment” has woven a big net and realized the series of actions of enclosure, planting leeks and harvest .
It can be said that through this big network, “Eggshell Apartments” have almost achieved the rental chain, all the places where money can be made are laid out, and the money that can not go out will never go out.
Step 4: Precise harvesting
Of course, the more money the company runs, the better.
As for apartment leasing, the traditional model is to pledge one and pay three, that is, one month’s rent is used as a deposit, and three months’ rent is paid at once. “Eggshell Apartment” has made some innovations in rent payment methods. It cooperated with WeBank and used the gimmick of no-deposit installment to induce young tenants to become lenders and obtain funding leverage.
If people were not familiar with installment payments in the early years, it would be more prudent to sign installment contracts, but now, young people are already very familiar with installment payments, even if they have not actually used it, they have at least heard about it. .
Moreover, most of the young people who generally need to rent a house today are not those with particularly sufficient funds. Considering that the use of “rental loans” can eliminate the need to pay 4 months of rent at once, plus some promotional offers, It seems that the “rental loan” is more “cost-effective”, so they acquiesced that the “rental loan” of the “Eggshell Apartment” is the same as the bank bill or the “installation payment” for shopping, and the contract is signed.
Our reporter interviewed many renters. Most people made it clear that they did not know that they were signing a loan contract when they signed the installment payment. Under the guidance of the housekeeper, most tenants will not carefully read every clause in the signing process, but directly tick them and click Next until the signing is completed.
A screenshot of an interviewed “rental loan” user chatting
WeBank’s “playing with fire”
From the perspective of WeBank, there are many strange things about “rental loans”.
First, the issue of fund flow. Although the tenant is a lender, the loan to WeBank never goes to the tenant’s account from the beginning to the end. Instead, it is transferred between Eggshell and Weizhong. The tenant has only two things to do, that is, signing the settlement. Loan contract and monthly repayment.
If you read the “Rental Loan Article 5 Clause” carefully, you can find that WeBank is very clear about the fund transfer model of “Eggshell Apartment”, and it even wrote a clause specifically for this to ensure that the renter must do it himself Assuming the responsibility of the loan, the renter cannot terminate the agreement by himself unless the payment is fully repaid. However, WeBank can unilaterally terminate the agreement, end the agreement early or even compulsory reminders.
Although this has not been done in the current social situation, from a legal perspective, WeBank has this right, and renters (that is, loanThe payer) is not allowed to appeal.
As long as it is a loan, there is bound to be interest.
According to the annual report of “Eggshell Apartment”, the interest of the “rental loan” is paid by “Eggshell Apartment”, and the renter only needs to repay the principal of the loan installment every month. However, anyone who has carried a mortgage knows that the principal and interest of each installment are collected simultaneously. If you only repay the principal but not interest, either the interest will be fined for overdue, or the interest will be added to the loan again.
In other words, at the same time as the eggshell thunder, all renters who have taken out “rental loans” are in a passive state of overdue, whether they know their state or not. Once WeBank connects the status of these “rental loans” to the credit reporting system, the status of “overdue” can easily be captured by the national credit reporting system. This will have an unpredictable impact on their future rental, loans, and job changes.
Second, there is a non-disclosure agreement between Eggshell and WeBank regarding rental loans. The tenant who is the lender does not know this matter and the terms of the agreement between the two companies.
One of the rent-loan users who are professional lawyers told Ent-Biz that when he went to the Beijing Eggshell headquarters to defend his rights, after repeated inquiries, the staff of WeBank admitted that we There is a confidentiality agreement between the bank and Eggshell Apartments, but the content of the agreement cannot be provided to users who are lenders.
However, the signing of a confidentiality agreement by both parties does not mean that there must be a confidential clause that violates the rights of users. Professionals told us that in the financial industry, in order to ensure that the business model is not known or stolen by other places, signing a confidentiality agreement is a routine action.
Thirdly, WeBank has the right to keep and use the renter’s legal benefit signature.
During the investigation, several “rental loan” users broke the news that WeBank was suspected of tampering with the electronic contract because some tenants found that the previous “4.4” clause in the currently opened electronic contract had disappeared. This clause can be understood as The tenant who uses the rent loan has returned the rent, and the loan can be traced back to the eggshell.
If this clause disappears, WeBank can let the tenant continue to repay the loan on the grounds that it has not received the refunded funds from Eggshell Apartment.
However, professional lawyers told us that the different versions of contracts currently provided by tenants do not rule out the possibility of PS. This requires professional organizations to conduct complete evidence collection.The proof is still inconclusive. Moreover, in terms of common sense, an electronic contract that can be easily unilaterally modified does not have legal effect. It is unlikely that WeBank will do this.
However, WeBank does have some hidden strong clauses. For example, in the “Article 6 Supplementary Provisions” of the rental loan signing contract, there are such provisions:
Interviewed “Funding Loan” users provide screenshots of loan contract clause 6.3 with WeBank
This means that WeBank is authorized to make and keep an electronic signature with legal benefits for the renter on behalf of the renter, and can use the signature and the signature is always valid.
This is obviously unreasonable. It means that as long as Weizhong is willing, it can sign any other supplementary agreement with the signature of the lender without telling the borrower.
Fourth, WeBank’s hindsight on the risk of eggshell funds is counterintuitive.
Strangely, in August, Gao Jing, the actual controller of the eggshell, was taken away for investigation on suspicion of 600 million state-owned capital outflows. The media and public opinion were in an uproar. According to common sense, financial institutions are highly sensitive to news and dynamics involving capital risks, and partners who are in charge of major economic issues should promptly suspend “rental loans” and other related businesses. However, through multi-party understanding, there are users’ reactions, The “rental loan” business of the Bank has been open to eggshell users in September or even October this year.
Everyone knows that the eggshell thunder is caused by the break of the capital chain, but according to the operating model of the eggshell, money should be the least lacking.
Theoretically speaking, the business model of “Eggshell Apartments” covers all the places that can make money. In addition, the users of “rental loan” can reach more than 65% (even 90% in the heyday), and Eggshell can advance With the half-year or one-year rent obtained from loans of more than half of the users, with such a large capital leverage, why is the loss still serious?
Some media explained that early eggshells opened the market with high income and low rent, and that funds were needed for decoration and maintenance. However, in interviews with landlords and tenants, it was discovered that the situation of high income and low rent only appeared in the first two years, and the eggshell rent in the past two years was not lower than the market price.
“Eggshell Apartment” is also constantly raising funds. Before the listing, its financing reached the D round, with a cumulative amount of more than 500 million US dollars. After the listing, it raised more than 100 million US dollars. Contrary to this, the operation of “Eggshell Apartments” has been at a loss, with a loss of 270 million yuan in 2017, a loss of 1.37 billion yuan in 2018, and a loss of 3.44 billion yuan in 2019.
Tianyancha Eggshell Apartment’s financing process
Why can a company that has been losing money continue to raise capital and successfully go public?
From the perspective of the company’s operating practices: First, the company is profitable, but it has made a loss on its books. (Just like Trump’s family business has always been at a loss to avoid taxation); second, the company disclosed its profit model to its investors, and the investors recognized this model and believed that they could make common profits in the future .
In either case, it is reflected from the side that the “Eggshell Apartment” should actually have relatively sufficient funds, or there will be a relatively large amount of capital income in the future.
Through the research on the corporate map of “Eggshell Apartment”, it is found that the “Purple Wutong (Beijing) Asset Management Co., Ltd.” in the corporate chain of “Eggshell Apartment” is mainly responsible for capital operations. Whether it is capital operation or corporate investment, most of them are operated by this company, which can be said to be the capital management base camp of “Eggshell Apartments”.
And this “Purple Indus” on April 9, 2020, invested 1 million 0.0815% of the shares to establish a company called “Kunshan Hongsen Huai Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership))” new company. This company invested 1.225 billion yuan, accounting for 99.837% of the majority shareholder, is “Jiangsu Yuewutong Asset Management Co., Ltd.”. “Yuewutong” is 100% owned by the parent company “PHOENIX TREE HK HOLDINGS LIMITED” Penetration “Mountain Wutong Co., Ltd.” and “Kunshan City Government State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Office” 100% Penetration “Kunshan Yinqiao Holding Group Co., Ltd.” jointly established.
Therefore, the background of “Kunshan Hongsenhuai Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership)” is self-evident.
The other shareholder of the company is “Wuhu Hongsen Fund Management Co., Ltd.”, which is also a minority shareholder with an investment of 1 million and accounting for 0.0815% of the shares. But its business scope is completely different from housing leasing, but 100% capital market services. The main business is fund management, investment management, equity investment, venture capital and asset management. As a small company established on November 29, 2019, its capital management capabilities and risk prevention and control capabilities are very worrying.
The author made a bold guess here. The funds of the “Eggshell Apartment” have been consumed in large quantities. It may be a capital investment operation that he cannot control. Even if he has a background to endorse, it is because of the risk of the project invested. Excessively high, the return of capital is not up to expectations, thus triggering the rupture of the overall “eggshell apartment” capital chain. Of course, this is just speculation and cannot be confirmed.
Experts warn: Be cautious and cautious about “renting a mortgage”
From the interviews and research conducted by reporters, it can be seen that the relationship between many renters and landlords is tense, and there are even cases of drawing swords.
But in fact, both the renter and the landlord are the pawns in this money game, and both are the losers. What really needs to be taken seriously is the “rental loan” contract with WeBank. Because this contract clearly stipulates that WeBank can make various notifications in various ways. As long as it is issued, whether the renter has received it or not, it will default to the confirmation of receipt and understanding.
Contract screenshot provided by interviewed user
A financial expert revealed to Ent-Biz that “rental loan” is an extremely risky operation mode, and large financial institutions such as banks will not pass such projects. But because of its high-yield characteristics, it is the main business of many small loan companies.
As mentioned above, why WeBank can do it because it is an Internet bank whose main business is to create exclusive loans for small and micro enterprises. And small and micro enterprise loans must have the attributes of small amount and high risk. In order to expand its business, WeBank will inevitably choose to diversify its operations, including businesses that are not involved in large financial institutions. However, the current supervision of related businesses is not clear enough, and there is still room for operation.
The overall amount of the rental loan is estimated to be as high as 2.75 billion yuan, and it may involve hundreds of thousands of renters. Regardless of the amount or the number of people involved, this is an astonishing case.
The lawyer told us that at present, the cost and difficulty of individual user rights protection is high. One of the feasible options is that the renter and the landlord can unite to complain that the relevant contract of WeBank is unreasonable and cancel the mandatory repayment of the renter in the contract. The content of the loan, and the object of debt collection has been changed to all penetrating companies of the “Eggshell Apartment”; or under the influence of public opinion, relevant government departments intervened, the joint law firm provided legal assistance, and the court cooperated with the rapid trial. No matter which way of protecting rights, it is a difficult and long process.
At present, we have also received a lot of news from Ziruo users, pointing out that Ziruo has also experienced many cases where the landlord rushed tenants out of rent due to arrears and forced the tenant to terminate the contract. Ziruo’s rent-loan users are all fresh graduates of the Haiyan Project, and the ratio is not as high as eggshell, but it is enough to make people shudder.
I love Hu Jinghui, the former vice president of my family, said: The explosion of a long-term apartment must be more powerful than a P2P explosion. Long-term rental apartments and financial players harvest credit for young people who have no wealth accumulation and are new to society. What is lost is not only money, but also their romantic ideals and trust in society.
This article from the micro-channel public number: New Culture Business (ID: Ent-Biz), Author: Zhou Yan, Yu Qian, Amy Wang, topic map: Vision inCountry