Since its establishment more than two years ago, Shenzhen Anju Jianye Investment and Operation Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Anju Jianye") has helped advance the "Three Guarantees and One Prevention" task for distressed real estate projects in Shenzhen. Based in Shenzhen and guided by the principles of market orientation, the rule of law, and capital preservation with modest profits, the company works to prevent and resolve risks in the real estate sector, undertakes the "Three Guarantees and One Prevention" task for distressed real estate projects within Shenzhen, and extends its reach nationwide, building a professional comprehensive service platform for special asset investment and operation.

Since its establishment, Anju Jianye has revitalized more than 20 distressed projects, and the floor area of projects it has operated, participated in supervising, or provided services for exceeds 4.3 million square meters, covering a variety of project types including investment and development of urban landmark projects, large-area urban renewal and redevelopment, and city-level district-wide coordinated development. Anju Jianye has innovatively adopted bailout models and delivered an impressive "report card" to the industry. Behind these outstanding results is the support of Anju Jianye's mission to maintain social stability and safeguard the security of state-owned assets, as well as its own rapid evolution in response to the environment.

Recently, Xu Ying, Assistant President of Glodon and Dean of the Digital Construction Client Research Institute, held an in-depth exchange with Cheng Peng, Deputy General Manager of Anju Jianye. This article organizes and presents the main viewpoints, decoding Anju Jianye's development path toward steady and long-term progress and its forward-looking digital blueprint.

Based on an uncertain external environment, define one's own strategic direction and business objectives

In the face of volatile international conditions and the domestic economic landscape, maintaining strategic focus is particularly important. Operating in the special distressed-asset bailout industry, Anju Jianye has an especially deep understanding of how to grasp its strategic direction and business objectives.

As a municipal state-owned enterprise and a professional comprehensive real estate investment and operation platform, Anju Jianye fully implements the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the Second and Third Plenary Sessions of the 20th Central Committee, accurately grasps measures for further comprehensively deepening reform and resolving major risks in the industry, and takes concrete action to step into the fray and revitalize distressed projects.

At the same time, Anju Jianye also deeply recognizes that risk resolution and bailouts are only phased tasks. Looking to the future, more important is to consider how, through its own efforts, to empower the industry and promote the stable and healthy development of the entire industry. Therefore, based on the underlying logic of market orientation and the rule of law as well as its own experience and advantages, Anju Jianye has distilled a strategic plan that is both forward-looking and aligned with actual development.

Strategically, in the face of an uncertain external environment, Anju Jianye first firmly establishes its positioning, carries forward and accumulates professional advantages, continuously summarizes and consolidates advanced experience, and steadily enhances its capacity to give back; in line with the requirements of the government and its four shareholders, it puts risk control first, carries out risk resolution and bailouts under a model of capital preservation with modest profits, and takes every step steadily and solidly.

In terms of business objectives, the "Three Guarantees and One Prevention" (guaranteeing delivery of housing, guaranteeing people's livelihood, guaranteeing stability, and preventing and resolving risks in the real estate sector) is a path with clear goals but destined to be full of twists and turns. Operating in a new industry and a new track, Anju Jianye has been fully authorized by its four shareholders. In its business, it must both ensure the security of state-owned assets and complete bailout tasks; while consolidating its corporate culture, it must also strive to further contribute to the industry.

Different from traditional real estate development enterprises, witha unique governance structure that supports the company's sound development

Anju Jianye's business is relatively special and involves many stakeholders. To achieve a balance among multiple parties, its organizational structure design must inevitably differ from that of traditional real estate development enterprises.

At the time of its founding, Anju Jianye clearly established the general route of "finance + real estate." If it followed the conventional real estate development model—evaluating and acquiring assets, then intervening, continuing development, and exiting—the risks would be considerable, and asset quality would often vary widely. Anju Jianye believes that only through the means of "finance + real estate" can real estate projects in the market that use real property as their carrier be revitalized.

Guided by the "finance + real estate" route, Anju Jianye's organizational structure exhibits two major characteristics: on the one hand, Anju Jianye is a state-owned enterprise operating under the overarching framework of "Party management of enterprises," with its own Party branch, actively giving play to the Party organization's role as a fighting fortress and ensuring the organization's advanced nature and purity; on the other hand, Anju Jianye follows a modern corporate governance structure, establishing a shareholders' meeting, board of directors, board of supervisors, and other bodies to ensure that all governance entities strictly exercise their powers and perform their duties in accordance with the articles of association.

The organizational setup first satisfies the company's corresponding basic functions, such as development, engineering, cost, procurement, and risk control. Second, the company has established an asset management department. Because many projects need to be revitalized from an overall industrial dimension—taking the Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base Tower B project as an example—after completing the transaction with the asset party, Anju Jianye carried out in-depth development of the project and then, through its commercial office business unit, planned, held, and operated the project so that it could better attract industries to serve Shenzhen's development. Third, Shenzhen's distressed projects are mostly concentrated in urban renewal projects. Against this background, and with the trend of many housing and urban-rural development bureaus across the country being renamed housing and urban renewal bureaus, Anju Jianye has specially established an urban renewal business unit to play its unique role and value around Shenzhen's overarching goal of sustainable development. In addition, Anju Jianye also has finance-related segments, hoping that in the future it can leverage advanced private equity fund models to bring in more like-minded partners to jointly provide transfusion, hematopoiesis, and blood renewal for the industry, and establish smooth channels for a virtuous cycle between financial institutions and real-economy enterprises.

Innovate organizational collaboration models so that objectives, processes, and standards are fully aligned

As a state-owned enterprise, Anju Jianye strictly implements the requirements of state-owned asset supervision in everything from project investment, procurement, and cost to the holding and exit of equity and debt, and also has well-established documented norms for top-level rules of procedure, operating models, and decision-making processes. Internal control development closely follows government requirements and state-owned asset supervision requirements to ensure orderly and compliant business operations. In terms of supervision and risk control, Anju Jianye has set up an independent risk department and a discipline inspection and audit department to conduct oversight, ensuring that "things get done without mishaps" and strictly upholding operational bottom lines.

Within the organization, Anju Jianye has established fast and efficient bottom-up communication channels. From just over a dozen employees at its founding to more than one hundred employees today, the company has always insisted on holding all-hands weekly meetings, at which individuals give play to their professional strengths, engage in full discussion and sharing, and help all employees synchronously calibrate objectives, standardize project boundaries, clarify the division of rights and responsibilities, and quickly pass on valuable experience, making management work twice as effective with half the effort.

In addition, Anju Jianye adheres to the management principle of "professionalism first, management second," flexibly applies a matrix organization, and has established a PMO working mechanism in which professional PMs jointly participate, forming a solidified internal communication and decision-making model that breaks down departmental barriers, unites multiple disciplines in a single focus, and acts more directly and effectively on revitalizing projects.

Maintain a transparent and fair industry environment and achieve a balance between supervision and operation

Anju Jianye was established in accordance with the strategic deployment and coordinated arrangements of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government, and in compliance with the principles of lawfulness and compliance, controllable risk, and commercial sustainability, as a professional comprehensive service platform for special asset investment and operation. Its positioning determines that it must both meet the supervisory needs of higher-level authorities and be able to win a place in market competition. So how does it achieve a balance between supervision and operation?

Cheng Peng stated that, as an enterprise, profitability means building risk resistance, so on the basis of strictly controlling risk, Anju Jianye conducts business in accordance with the business objectives assigned by its higher-level shareholders, pursuing capital preservation with modest profits.

Supervision and operation should also be organically unified—only when supervision is done properly and the company's overall governance and control are done properly can the enterprise achieve steady and long-term progress. Anju Jianye takes integrity building as its foundation, taking the lead in ensuring that the projects themselves do not encounter major risks. In the company's structural design, it sets up positions that are mutually independent yet able to supervise one another, such as an independent discipline inspection department and an audit department, to effectively prevent business risks.

Culturally, Anju Jianye actively advocates a clean and upright working atmosphere, emphasizing fair, just, and efficient business conduct. When facing every client and every distressed enterprise, it always helps them design bailout plans with a fair attitude; in this way, the market will be more welcoming to such enterprises to intervene.

At present, supervision by distressed enterprises, financial institutions, and others is also gradually changing, with objectives gradually converging. Anju Jianye clearly positions itself as a service platform. They believe that as long as they maintain a transparent and fair environment, gather professional strength, firmly uphold the mission of safeguarding a better life, and create real value for distressed enterprises, existing creditor institutions, and every homebuyer, they will be able to secure a place in the industry.

Non-performing assets are each unique; relying on innovation and openness to create real value

Non-performing assets are non-standard in nature and can be described as "each unique," which means that the targets, counterparties, and problems inherent in the projects that Anju Jianye faces each time are all different. To this end, Anju Jianye adopts innovative and open thinking, focusing on the underlying logic of projects and assessing appropriate disposal methods, including revitalization through acquiring and repairing asset packages, revitalization through asset-light entrusted services, and revitalization of non-performing debt through debt restructuring, among other methods. At present, Anju Jianye has distilled six models to help the company prescribe the right remedy for the right problem and target its efforts precisely.

In the specific bailout process, Cheng Peng believes one must learn to listen. A distressed project often involves multiple stakeholders such as homebuyers, developers, financial creditors, and suppliers. Anju Jianye will assign a professional due diligence team to thoroughly understand the project's fundamentals and historical evolution, then negotiate with all stakeholders to find points of alignment. Based on the demands of multiple parties and what Anju Jianye can do within its capacity, it coordinates the value orientations of all parties. Through this series of work, it creates real value and enables the project to quickly return to normal operation.

In short, Anju Jianye focuses on the highlights and incremental value that its intervention and empowerment can bring to a project, and conducts all business with an open and responsible attitude toward its partners.

However, openness and innovation also mean mistakes are inevitable. How can risks be reduced in this process so that everyone can work with confidence and act boldly?

First, decision-making in state-owned enterprises follows democratic centralism. Democracy must first be fully realized, and then centralized decisions are made through relevant meetings. Anju Jianye first tries to let every employee speak, pools collective wisdom, then conducts reasonable assessment, finds the fundamental logic behind the problem, and then makes widely accepted decisions to avoid major errors in decision-making.

Second, Anju Jianye takes "focus on the matter, not the person" as its corporate culture. Leading cadres lead by example; when mistakes occur, they do not target individuals directly but first relieve everyone's worries, then actively mobilize multiple disciplines, pool collective wisdom, and collaboratively find the root cause of the problem before resolving it quickly.

Third, Anju Jianye always emphasizes team spirit. If the team makes a mistake, team members do not shift blame to one another but reach a consensus on shared responsibility, creating an open and co-creative environment. In such an atmosphere, employees do not carry too much psychological burden and are instead more willing to innovate, to make judgments based on facts and their own expertise, and to speak out frankly and offer honest advice.

Fourth, whether senior executives or middle managers, all must truly "stand up for those who take responsibility and support those who get things done." When everyone has the company and the industry at heart, fulfilling the mission of "creating real value" becomes all the more natural.

At the same time, Anju Jianye also has its own "exclusive" assessment mechanism—completing assessment indicators and finishing one's own work does not mean one can get a high score in the assessment; instead, a comprehensive evaluation is made of dimensions such as employees' output value and subjective initiative. To encourage employee innovation, the company sets a weight of only 80%–90% for employees' own work in the assessment, and employees can fill in the remaining 10% according to the work they are willing to do, with relevant leaders then giving scores for this additional work. Unlike most state-owned enterprises, which conduct assessments once a year or once every half year, Anju Jianye's assessment cycle is quarterly, fully stimulating employee enthusiasm.

Combining its unique positioning and business characteristics, plan and implement the digital blueprint

Under the strategic background of Digital China, Anju Jianye also makes digitalization a key priority and has planned digital construction stages and a blueprint that can be continuously implemented.

First, based on Anju Jianye's unique business characteristics, digital construction must start from the business and serve the business. First, professional systems must be developed to sort out business processes through digitalization, improve business efficiency, consolidate work results, and compare target differences, facilitating subsequent business analysis and business decision-making. In addition to meeting the needs of ordinary real estate development, it is also necessary, based on the characteristics of non-performing asset revitalization services, to add an asset operation segment. In the future, an open system for fund company management and some business analysis modules will also be established to support business development.

Second, digital suppliers differ in interfaces and technologies. Anju Jianye requires that all systems must be interconnected, achieve seamless connection, and deliver a 1+1>2 effect, avoiding the need to "reinvent the wheel" for the next business task.

Third, Anju Jianye aims to serve the industry, so it hopes to open the ports of its own digital systems, create new value after relevant business data is connected, and through disclosure to service parties via the digital systems, enable shareholder units, financial institutions, and distressed enterprises to clearly see the positive changes in projects.

Fourth, Anju Jianye insists on "only one set of data" and will not create another set of data for reporting or other scenarios. Therefore, in the definition of the entire business and in data collection and management, the company ensures the authenticity, accuracy, and uniqueness of data through strict systems and entirely new management.

Finally, Anju Jianye hopes that digital construction will not only empower the business but also form a system that mutually corroborates itself. Through digital accumulation, it can provide a decision-making basis for future business reviews or strategic planning, helping managers improve the scientific nature and efficiency of decision-making.

In summary, Anju Jianye's digital blueprint mainly revolves around the construction of three major platforms: first, the business management platform; second, the risk control platform; and third, a shared platform that opens ports to partners. The company has been established for only a short time, and digital construction is still in its first stage, namely improving the business management platform. With the assistance of Glodon, Anju Jianye has already built an engineering management platform and a procurement and tendering platform, and will subsequently further realize risk early warning according to the construction and data accumulation of each system, gradually opening up to partners.

In terms of blueprint planning, Anju Jianye will first consolidate and strengthen its own advantages through digitalization. In the revitalization of distressed real estate projects, it will strengthen real estate development-related systems, continuously refine the company's capabilities through these systems, and expand digital construction in the commercial segment in line with the needs of different business formats such as operational assets and commercial offices—for example, intelligent services and operation of office buildings. At the same time, for non-performing asset revitalization, it will gradually expand informatization in related fields such as fund raising, financial asset management, and exit. Around its digital strategic objectives, it will ultimately form an integrated system to support the sound development of the business and the company.

The establishment and development of Anju Jianye would not have been possible without the delegation of authority and empowerment by Anju Group, nor without the collaborative support of its four shareholders: Anju Group, Special Zone Construction Engineering Group, Shum Yip Group, and Vanke Group. As industry adjustment enters "deep water," Anju Jianye's development model also provides a reference sample for the transformation of the real estate industry.