Cement is a great cause, carrying the people's yearning for a better life, and laying a solid foundation for economic and social development. Over the past decades, China's cement industry has been developing continuously and making great progress, realizing the technological leap from shaft kiln to new dry process, completing the transformation from following to leading in the world, and becoming a basic industry with great international competitiveness in China. In the course of the vigorous development of the cement industry, a large number of dedicated outstanding figures have emerged, who have profoundly reshaped the development pattern of China's cement industry and injected strong impetus into the iterative upgrading of the industry. In the near future, China Cement Network will review the industry figures who have made outstanding contributions to China's cement industry from a third-party perspective.
Today we bring Koo Cheng-yun, former chairman of Taiwan Cement Co., Ltd.
First,
he is the second son of Taiwan's "first family", but he once cleaned toilets and worked as a cook. Starting from the grass-roots level, he made a gross profit margin of only 2.
When everyone shouted "crazy", he took all his belongings to the mainland of South China. With the rare courage of five factories breaking ground at the same time, it has entered the top three of the comprehensive strength of the mainland cement industry, and is regarded as a "real mainland enterprise" by the mainland counterparts, which is a rare outlier in the non-mainland cement circle.
He spent hundreds of millions of dollars to promote the research and development of new drugs for rare diseases, which made the Hollywood film "Good Medicine"; he spent NT 3 billion to build the world's largest plant conservation center, just "want to do something less stinking.".
He described his admiration and affection for his father as "he is Zhuge Kongming, and I am a small soldier in front of his tent", but inadvertently, he grew into another towering tree with his own life.
He is Gu Chengyun (1954-2017), the former chairman of Taiwan Cement Co., Ltd. In the second half of the
20th century, Taiwan's economy completed the leap from an agricultural society to industrialization at an astonishing speed. Cement, steel, and petrochemicals supported the skeleton of this island. Accompanied by this industrialization is a group of centuries-old families with Taiwan's local capital as the core. They have intertwined wealth, blood and the fate of the country, and become the coordinates that Taiwan's modern history can not bypass.
Among these families, one name is always mentioned alone: the Koo family, the Koo family of Lukang. The legend of this
family lies not only in wealth, but also in the thickness of history. His great-grandfather Ku Hung-ming was a prodigy in the late Qing Dynasty who integrated the East and the West. He translated the Analects of Confucius and the Doctrine of the Mean into English. It is widely said in the West that "you can go to China without seeing the three main halls, but you must see Ku Hung-ming." His great-grandfather Yan Fu translated Evolution and Ethics and prepared to build Peking University, which is a beacon in the history of modern Chinese thought; His father, Koo Chen-fu, brought the family to the top of the business world by founding the Hexin Group, and even facilitated the "Wang-Koo talks" as the first chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation, writing a page of history at the most sensitive node of cross-strait relations.
This is the asset that Gu Chengyun had in front of him when he was born-brilliant and almost suffocating.
And he spent 63 years of his life, under this pressure, walking out of a road of his own. The Koo family in Lukang,
Taiwan, can be traced back to the Qing Dynasty, and by the time of Koo Chen-fu's generation, it was already a prominent family in Taiwan. When Koo Cheng-yun was born, his father was already a young entrepreneur most admired by Chiang Kai-shek, and his mother, Yen Cho-yun, was a student brought out by Soong Mei-ling. The two families intermarried, which could be called the marriage of the best match in Taiwan's political and business circles at that time. What have you seen in
such a family?
However, he did not want to be a "son of an aristocratic family" who was labeled. During his study
in the United States, Gu Chengyun deliberately kept a distance from his family identity-sweeping toilets, working as a cook, and perceiving the daily life of ordinary people in the ordinary work of work-study program. After returning to Taiwan, he "incognito" entered a Taiwanese enterprise to work, like any young man without background, starting from the bottom. He was 28 years old
in 1982. The voice of the family's call finally came. He joined Taiwan Cement and started from the most basic position. There was no order, no fast lane, and he put himself into a long experience.
Another whole decade.
In 1992, at the age of 38, he sat in a conference room with his father for the first time. Opposite is a table full of old ministers, eyes are full of looking and examining. Gu Chengyun later recalled the scene, saying that he was "so nervous that he sweated like pulp, wet his shirt and soiled his suit.". At that moment, he understood that birth was just a ticket, and every step behind it must be done by himself.
At that time, he thought he was just doing his part in his father's career. He did not think that the fate of succession was waiting for him not far away. In February
2001, a sad news broke the peace of the Gu family: the eldest brother, Gu Qiyun, was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma and died of illness 10 months later. Before his death,
the eldest brother was determined to forge ahead and vigorously develop the new Internet economy after taking over some of the family's industries. However, the global Internet bubble burst just at this time, and the group was burdened with tens of billions of NT yuan in debt, with the debt ratio once approaching 50%. With the downturn of Taiwan's economy, the shrinking profits of traditional industries, and the failure of new markets such as telecommunications and cable TV to make profits as scheduled, the Koo family has fallen into a dilemma of multi-line pressure.
His father, Koo Chen-fu, made a prompt decision and decided to stop losses by separating the family: the financial assets with CITIC Finance as the core were assigned to his nephew Koo Lien-sung, and the industrial assets such as Taiwan Cement and China Rubber were handed over to Koo Cheng-yun. In
this way, 47-year-old Gu Chengyun became the owner of Taiwan Cement, an identity he had never planned before.
Taiwan Cement is the first listed company in Taiwan, the starting point of his father's US $10 billion business, and the foundation of the Koo family's industrial territory. But at the moment, the foundation is shaking. Although Taiwan Cement has firmly occupied more than 50% of Taiwan's market share, its gross profit margin has fallen to an all-time low. 2.
This is not a succession that has been lifted, but a succession that has been pushed into danger.
5. Betting on everything: In the first year after the mainland
took over Taiwan Cement, Koo Cheng-yun surprised everyone with his judgment. He decided that defending Taiwan was a dead end, and there was only one way out: to go to the mainland.
This judgment was opposed and ridiculed by all sides at that time. The old minister of the enterprise said bluntly: "Not to mention the local enterprises in the mainland, Taiwan's industry has been there for 10 years, and now I can't even drink the soup. I'm confused." Taiwan's cement industry also shook their heads one after another: "Koo Cheng-yun is crazy." The
external voice has not yet stopped, Gu Chengyun has begun to act.
In 2001, he signed an agreement to invest five factories simultaneously in South China. The usual logic of Taiwan-funded enterprises was to wait for the first factory to make a profit and then build the next one. Five factories broke ground at the same time, which was unheard of in Taiwan's business circles at that time. Where does the
money come from? The curse of "unfilial piety" came to his face, but he said that it was the greatest "unfilial piety" to let Taiwan mud sink. The money was then invested in a cement grinding plant with an annual output of 1.5 million tons and a 25000-ton wharf project in Fuzhou, Fujian Province.
In 2003, Taiwan Cement invested 2.5 billion yuan to build a cement production base in Yingde, Guangdong Province, with a planned total output of about 10 million tons, which was equivalent to the total output of Taiwan Cement in Taiwan Island at that time. This is equivalent to replicating the industrial scale accumulated in Taiwan for decades in the mainland. Followed by Guangxi Guigang 9 million tons this is just the beginning.". Since then, the territory of Taiwan Cement has continued to extend: Jurong in Jiangsu, Lighthouse in Liaoning, Anshun in Guizhou, Guang'an in Sichuan, Chongqing, Baoshan in Yunnan, and Anning in Yunnan. Covering more than half the continent.
2005, the answer emerged. Taiwan Cement's cement production and efficiency in the mainland have both surpassed its Taiwan-funded counterparts who entered the mainland market 10 years earlier, and squeezed into the top three in terms of comprehensive strength, ranking first in South China. In the era when other non-mainland cement enterprises have been marginalized, Taiwan Cement has become the only non-mainland cement enterprise that is truly regarded as "one of its own" by its mainland counterparts.
In 2015, the scale of Taiwan Cement Group was 7.5 times that of Gu Chengyun when he took over, the stock price was 3.5 times that of Gu Chengyun at that time, the clinker production capacity ranked sixth in the mainland, the brand spread all over South China, Southwest China, and even the world market, and more than 80% of the revenue of Taiwan Cement Group came from the mainland
. Gu Chengyun integrates the concept of "environmental protection is responsibility, not cost" into the gene of Taiwan Cement, and combines production with incineration power generation, sewage treatment and carbon emission neutralization in the transformation and upgrading of traditional cement industry with the idea of energy saving, emission reduction and waste utilization, thus setting an example for cross-strait environmental protection. His environmental protection "counterattack" has changed Taiwan mud and changed the industry.
child's community raised a sum of money to operate on him, but the waiting time was too long, the money was enough, and the child died. Chen yuansong is determined to develop this drug to save this group, but he does not have enough research and development funds. After hearing this,
Gu Chengyun said nothing and immediately invested a sum of money. In the following years, he continued to increase his investment. "Heart to heart, the first sum of money is purely in the hope of helping the group, without any conditions put in." He said.
A few years later, the new drug Myozyme was successfully developed and approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States. At the beginning, "only meaningful things" became Gu Chengyun's first pot of gold. As one of the patent holders of new drugs, this investment has brought him hundreds of millions of dollars in return.
This investment also led to a Hollywood film, The Good Doctor, in which Harrison Ford's story originated.
Another story is his deep affection for his mother.
He poured NT 3 billion into land in Pingtung County in southern Taiwan and supported Li Jiawei, a professor at Tsinghua University in Taiwan, to build a plant conservation center to preserve endangered or undiscovered plant species from all over the world. The center was named after his mother, Yan Zhuoyun: "Koo Yan Zhuoyun Plant Conservation Center". Today, it is the largest plant conservation center in the world and the most frequently visited place for plant researchers around the world.
The center is not profitable and continues to swallow funds every year. Gu Chengyun has only one sentence about this:
"I just want to do something that is not so stinking."
His personal wealth reached 10.4 billion yuan in 2014, ranking 22nd in Taiwan's rich list. But many "rich second generation" luxury car beauties have not heard of any sex news from him. He said that most of his friends are "dull" scientists, and in his spare time, he spends the most time with these friends, and most of his money is spent in the field of scientific research.
Gu Chengyun once said that his admiration for his father, Gu Zhenfu, had never faded- "He is Zhuge Kongming, and I am a small soldier in front of his tent." In his later years
, Koo Chen-fu gradually developed a knot in his heart. The Taiwan authorities are accustomed to taking advantage of his prestige between the two sides of the strait, but they take the lead in sabotaging the situation when it is convenient, and whenever the situation gets out of control and is scolded, Koo Chen-fu is used as a shield. He felt "used" and had nowhere to talk. Koo Chen-fu personally presided over the construction of a banquet hall
on the 15th floor of the Taiwan Cement Corporation headquarters. He said that when Mr. Wang Daohan came, he would invite him to dinner here-quiet, no one disturbed him. The third "Wang-Koo talks" have never been realized. In January
2005, Koo Chen-fu was critically ill and could not speak, but could only write. On his deathbed, he motioned for a pen and paper. The children thought it was a family matter and waited with bated breath. As a result, the old man trembled and wrote two lines of words:
"Care about Taiwan, care about the two sides of the strait."
Gu Chengyun said that what his father was thinking about until the last moment was still bigger than family business. This contrast, let him both heartache, and a deeper understanding of that far taller than his figure.
8. The end
of the accident is January 21, 2017, the Spring Festival before the lunar calendar. Gu Chengyun attended a friend's wedding banquet, accidentally stepped on the air in the stairwell, fell from the third floor to the second and a half floor platform, and lost consciousness on the spot. Two days later, in the early morning of January 23, the rescue was ineffective and Gu Chengyun died at the age of 63. When
the news came out, Taiwan's business community was deeply saddened.
He left so suddenly that he did not deliberately arrange the shift. He had a son and a daughter. At that time, the son was still working overseas in his early thirties, and the daughter had never set foot in Taiwan. The board of directors urgently elected his brother-in-law, Chang An-ping, to act as chairman of the board and general manager, and the direction of Taiwan Cement Corporation was transferred to another person.
For Gu Chengyun, this may be a legendary life: from the second son who was shrouded by the halo of a huge family to the helmsman who rewrote the fate of a century-old enterprise with one person's decision; from the desperate person who was laughed at as "crazy" by the whole industry to the "own person" who was truly recognized by the mainland cement market; From the humanist who silently supports new drugs for rare diseases and the world's largest plant conservation center, to the son of the Gu family who regards himself as a "small soldier in front of the tent" but has already grown into a towering tree.
Gu Chengyun had a greater "ambition" before his death. He planned to make Taiwan Cement's production capacity the first echelon in the world and compete for the "largest in the world" in the future.
This ambition, with his departure, has become an unfinished last wish-but the seeds he sowed have been deeply rooted in the land on both sides of the strait.
"Gentlemen love money, take it in a proper way"-this long-standing ancient precept may not be able to summarize Gu Chengyun's life, but it just points out his background. His life is the life of a businessman, but more than that; it is the life of an aristocratic family, but beyond that. The
real roots are always longer than tombstone.
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