Taking advantage of the capital boom, FF strives to go ashore

Author | Li Qin, Yang Lin

From a number of people familiar with FF’s domestic financing projects, it was learned that the electric vehicle company FF (Faraday Future) founded by Jia Yueting is seeking a new brand in China. In the round of financing, Geely Group has expressed a clear investment intention. At the same time, FF’s old shareholder Evergrande Group also participated in this financing negotiation.

“Geely Automobile plans to invest 30 million to 40 million U.S. dollars in FF, and it will be announced as soon as next week.” A source told. In addition, sources who came into contact with the FF financing project also revealed that although Evergrande Group had disputes with FF over the control of domestic companies, Evergrande was still involved in the negotiation of FF’s domestic fundraising. From public information, Evergrande Group holds 32% of FF shares.

Just yesterday, Reuters reported that FF will build new factories in domestic first-tier cities with an initial production capacity of 100,000 units. And FF’s manufacturing service partner is Geely Automobile, and the two parties will also cooperate in the automatic driving of FF models. Confirming the news from the supply chain, FF has negotiated with CATL on power battery cooperation.

Previously, Bloomberg reported that FF is seeking to list on the US stock market through SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company), and is currently negotiating with Property Solutions Acquisition on the merger.

SPAC is a form of rapid listing. In the process, the SPAC platform is first established to raise funds, and then the entity business company is merged to enable the latter to achieve a listing transaction. In Bloomberg’s report, FF’s SPAC platform company is seeking more than $400 million in funding to support the transaction, which will make the combined entity company’s valuation reach about $3 billion.

And many sources told that FF will submit SPAC listing materials as early as two weeks, and domestic financing matters are expected to be announced at that time.

For the above information, FF and Geely Group have been verified, and both parties declined to comment.

Faraday Future (FaradayFuture) was founded by LeEco founder Jia Yueting in 2014, and is positioned as a high-end smart electric vehicle that can be benchmarked against Tesla. In 2016, the LeTV system collapsed, and Jia Yueting flew to the United States to invest in Faraday Future, a car-building project, seeking an opportunity to stand up. However, FF financing has repeatedly suffered setbacks, and the mass production of the first car FF91 has been repeatedly delayed.

In October 2019, Jia Yueting issued a personal bankruptcy reorganization plan, which will take all personal assets determined by the US courts, that is, all FF equity held by individuals and related income rights Formally transferred to the creditor trust. The former BMW vice president Carsten Breitfeld succeeded Jia Yueting in FF.

But whether Jia Yueting really let go of the FF car manufacturing business is a question mark. A number of LeEco former employees who had initiated arbitration told them that they had recently received long-delayed salaries, and some suppliers also received arrears. “Jia Yueting must first pay back domestic debts if he wants to develop FF business in China.” , LeEco employees analyzed it, and at the same time, the news that Jia Yueting was about to return to China was circulating within LeEco. But people who came into contact with the FF fundraising project said that they still don’t know where Jia Yueting is.

Some industry insiders commented that the entire new energy vehicle industry is very popular, and this may be the best opportunity for Jia Yueting and FF to stand up. In 2020, Ideal Auto and Xiaopeng Auto’s Pre-IPO valuations are only about US$5 billion, but within a year of listing, their market value has reached about US$30 billion, an increase of more than 6 times. It is understood that the pre-IPO valuations of Weimar Motors and Zero Running Motors that are sprinting on the Science and Technology Innovation Board are all below 40 billion yuan, but the brokerages preset their IPO market value at 80 billion yuan or even higher.

The capital boom continues to rise. Whether it is Byton, which has been shut down for half a year, or FF, which has been turbulent for many years, they are striving to seize the hope of landing.

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