Suppliers queue as employees clear out offices
On Tuesday, on the 17th floor of the futuristic and stylish Soho Building on Guanghua Road, Chaoyang district, employees of Dazhong Gouwu (Mass Shopping), a TV shopping company, were packing their personal effects and preparing to leave.
The left wing of the office was almost empty. In the right wing of the office, there were just a few employees left to handle any outstanding affairs.
Outside the office, around 10 people were sitting on chairs or lying on sofas. They were suppliers, to whom Dazhong Gouwu owed payment, waiting to collect their debts.
The suppliers, from Beijing and other places across China, including Shaanxi, Henan, Hunan and Guangdong provinces, told METRO they had been waiting for two days.
"On Friday, they (Dazhong Gouwu) told their employees the firm was to suspend operations, but they did not say anything to us", said Zhao, a businessman who produces electrical appliances and a long-term supplier to Dazhong Gouwu.
He said the company still owed him outstanding payments for five months, around 200,000 yuan.
A woman surnamed Pang, a producer of daily necessities based in Shaanxi, said she came to Beijing yesterday to collect the 80,000 yuan the firm owes her.
Altogether Dazhong Gouwu owed the 10 suppliers around 1.8 million yuan.
On Monday, an accountant of Dazhong Gouwu told the suppliers the firm was still trying to make the payments. And a lawyer representing the company told them that it would give them a reply in a week. However, he did not promise the company would pay the debts.
Dazhong Gouwu was a subsidiary of Yuzhou (Universe) Dazhong Commerce and Trade Development Ltd, based in Zhuhai, Guangdong province. On the business license of Yuzhou Dazhong, whose shareholder is HSP Production (HK) Limited, it states the company has registered capital of HK$131 million.
A manager from Dazhong Gouwu said the firm was operating "normally" before Friday, but declined to reveal the reasons that operations had been suspended.
The company had a high turnover - the daily sales were around 130,000 yuan - but despite this had suffered losses for a long time.
According to the suppliers, banks had stopped lending to the company and demanded it repay loans, forcing it to cease operations.
An employee working for the logistics department of the firm, who stayed at the office, said on Tuesday the company did not pay her salary last month either.
"I'm still handling the remaining logistics matters, and waiting for the company to pay me," she said.
