“The reason why I gave up everything was to make FF and repay the remaining guarantee debt as soon as possible to realize the dream of transforming the automobile industry.”
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Daily Economic News” (ID: nbdnews), edited by Li Jinghan Du Bo.
Jia Yueting, who has not updated Weibo for a month and a half, announced a heavy news last night (September 3):
“The reason why I gave up everything was to make FF and repay the remaining guaranteed debt as soon as possible to realize the dream of transforming the automobile industry.”
Image Source: @贾跃亭微博
Before this, FaradayFuture (hereinafter referred to as FF) announced that FF founder Jia Yueting will resign as CEO and then become CPUO (Chief Product and User Officer, CHIEF PRODUCT & USER OFFICER).
It is worth mentioning that an important reason for the cooperation between FF and Evergrande was that Jia Yueting was not willing to give up control of FF.
Jia Yueting resigned as CEO of FF Company
On September 3, US local time, FF issued a statement announcing the appointment of Dr. Carsten Breitfeld as the global CEO. According to information disclosed by FF, Dr. Bi Fukang is a world-renowned electric vehicle expert. Prior to joining FF in September 2019, Dr. Bi Fukang founded and served as Chairman and CEO of China’s electric car startup, Beiteng. Prior to this, he worked for BMW for 20 years as the group’s vice president and head of the i8 project, and built the i8 luxury plug-in electric model. In the short term, he will lead the team to sprint the mass production preparation of the FF 91 electric car and complete the final development of the next big model FF 81 intelligent electric car.
Dr. Bi Fukang (Source: FF)
At the same time, Jia Yueting resigned as the former CEO and became the CPUO. He will be responsible for the overall implementation of the Internet ecosystem strategy, leadership intelligence, product definition, user acquisition, user experience and user operations. In the statement, FF also praised Jia Yueting for his praise. Let’s feel it:
As early as 2014, FF founder Jia Yueting led the team to create a new species, the FF 91, which redefines the new standards for the transformation of the next generation automotive industry from the aspects of electric, intelligent, connected and shared.
He is a great dreamer and a forward-looking world-class strategist. As the pioneer of the Internet ecological model, Mr. Jia Yueting has rich experience in the fields of Internet, consumer electronics and artificial intelligence, and is good at cross-industry break-up.
As early as 2004, he founded LeTV, the world’s first video website, and later created a new wave of genuine content and payment for the Internet, leading the development of the entire video industry. With unique innovation, he built the Internet ecosystem, created the world’s leading Internet eco TV and mobile phone, and instantly became the industry’s largest Internet TV brand. His success in the Internet ecosystem model has led to changes and upgrades in the Internet industry.
Mr. Jia Yueting’s dream vision and strategic forward-looking have given FF a strong transformational gene; his layout of business models and technological innovations has also established FF’s differentiated competitiveness; he will also be in product technology and users. The field of ecological innovation continues to promote FF to achieve long-term ecological strategic goals.
FF also announced the public recruitment of the global chairmanship. Since the end of 2018, the founder of the company, Mr. Jia Yueting, has made great efforts to promote this change and has entered the project implementation stage. In addition, Mr. Jia Yueting also took the opportunity to establish a debt repayment trust fund to achieve priority, quick and complete settlement of his personal remaining guarantee debt.
Jia Yueting also said in the Weibo on the evening of September 3rd, “I gave up everything, just to make FF, and fully repay the remaining guarantee debt as soon as possible to realize the dream of transforming the automobile industry.”
LeTV.com is reporting on debts
FF also revealed in the latest statement that Jia Yueting has repaid domestic debt of more than $3 billion (about 20 billion yuan) in the past two years.
However, the saying that “Jia Yueting repaid 20 billion yuan in debt” is longIt’s not new in 2017.
According to the Times Weekly, in the first half of 2017, the Lexus capital chain crisis broke out. At that time, there was a media inventory. LeTV was in arrears with suppliers of about 10 billion yuan, and financial institutions had loans of more than 20 billion yuan. The overall debt was nearly 35 billion yuan. As the then chairman of LeTV, Jia Yueting took responsibility for most of the debts.
After the break of the Leshi capital chain, Jia Yueting publicly promised that he would bear all liabilities. In August 2017, with the support of Sun Hongbin, LeTV repaid the financial institution’s arrears of 15 billion yuan, but still has more than 10 billion yuan of debt outstanding.
Image Source: Visual China (data map)
Jia Yueting suddenly announced his resignation as CEO.
In June 2018, Evergrande Health spent 6.7 billion yuan to acquire 100% of the shares of Hong Kong Shiying Company, which indirectly obtained 45% of FF Motors and became the largest shareholder of FF. According to the agreement between FF Top Holding. Ltd under the control of FF’s original shareholder and Jia Yueting, Shiying Company shall pay US$800 million to FF before the end of 2018, US$600 million in 2019, and US$600 million in 2020.
According to Evergrande Health’s announcement, Shiying Company had paid in advance of the US$800 million paid before the end of the year on May 25, 2018, but it was less than two months. In July, Jia Yueting proposed another $800 million. When it is used up, it is required to pay 700 million US dollars in advance.
Hengda Health signed a supplemental agreement with Smart King and the original shareholder, agreeing to pay the $700 million in advance, subject to payment terms. However, Jia Yueting later repented.
In October 2018, the two companies went to court because of the breakdown of cooperation.
It is worth mentioning that LeTV.com is still collecting debts from Jia Yueting in the latest semi-annual report. According to the company’s announcement, as of June 30, 2019, the balance of the arrears of the major shareholder (referred to as Jia Yueting) and its actual controlled enterprises on the scope of the merger of listed companies was approximately 1.985 billion yuan (because Lerong Zhixin is no longer included in the scope of merger of listed companies) The major shareholder and its related parties will no longer be included in the merger scope of the listed company for the new payment due to Lerong.
LeTV said in the semi-annual report that since August 2018, the two sides have conducted several negotiations, and there is no agreement on the key points of the related party debt repayment, and the settlement and implementation of the solution depend on largeShareholders’ willingness to handle and actual execution. “The disposal of debt problems between listed companies and major shareholders and their related parties is in a state of stagnation.”
LeTV’s semi-annual report also shows. In the first half of this year, LeTV’s total revenue was 253 million, down nearly 75% year-on-year. The net loss attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 10.046 billion yuan, down more than 800% year-on-year. As of June 30, the total number of shareholders of LeTV was 280,000.