李寧公司處理庫存求翻身
Four years ago, former Chinese gymnast Li Ning flew into Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium to ignite the Olympic flame. Now his company is taking a torch to its own inventory.
四年前，中國前體操運動員李寧飛進北京國家體育場“鳥巢”，點燃了奧運聖火。現在，他的公司正準備一把火點燃自己的存貨。With retail sales in China clocking close to 15% annual growth, there's plenty for consumer goods companies to play for. But sportswear retailer Li Ning has been losing out, with profits declining steadily. Earnings fell from 582 million yuan ($93 million) in the first half of 2010 to just 44 million yuan in the same period this year.
中國零售額年度增幅接近15%，消費產品公司有很大的發揮空間。但運動服飾零售商李寧公司卻節節失利，利潤穩步下滑。該公司2010年上半年收入人民幣5.82億元，而今年同期則降至人民幣4,400萬元。The problem for Li Ning and domestic rivals like Anta: massive overproduction in anticipation of demand that never arrived. That left retail channels stuffed with unsold inventory, forcing discounted sales and making it more difficult to get new products to consumers. It tarnished Li Ning's brand too, and helped push China's sports fans into the arms of Nike and Adidas.
李寧以及安踏這類國內競爭者面臨的問題是，由於預期中的需求從未實現而出現大規模的生產過剩。這導致零售渠道充斥着賣不出去的存貨，迫使商家打折銷售，從而也就更難以向顧客推出新產品。這種做法也損害了李寧的品牌，將中國的運動愛好者推向了耐克(Nike)和阿迪達斯(Adidas)的懷抱。
he company, which took a steroid shot of capital from private-equity firm TPG earlier this year, says it will vault out of these difficulties with a 1.4 billion yuan-1.8 billion yuan plan that includes clearing inventory, closing down or relocating some stores and restructuring accounts receivable.
私募股權公司TPG今年早些時候的注資無疑是給李寧公司的一劑強心針。李寧公司說，將拿出規模在人民幣14億元至18億元的計劃，克服上述困難，計劃包括清空庫存、關閉或遷移部分門店並重組應收賬款。The hope is Li Ning can earn an edge over competitors by bringing fresh, new products to market and clearing out old stock without a fire sale that would further dent the brand. But it's an expensive strategy that will cost at least 3.6 times profit for the whole of last year. The plan also carries a high degree of difficulty given it involves a number of different moving parts, including 52 distributors, notes Barclays.
此舉是寄希望於李寧能通過向市場推出全新的產品而領先於競爭對手，同時在無需降價促銷的情況下清空存貨，降價促銷會進一步損害其品牌。但這是個代價高昂的戰略，其代價至少是去年全年利潤的3.6倍。巴克萊(Barclays)指出，這個計劃同時還有很高的難度，因爲它涉及多個不同的運轉部門，包括52家經銷商。Li Ning is paying a high price to go back to the starting line. But victory in the race is by no means guaranteed.
李寧正爲重新回到起跑線上而付出高昂代價，但這也不能完全保證它會獲得這場比賽的勝利。
