Lei Jianping reported on December 12
Since its inception, Royole has always stood up to the aura and has been questioned by the outside world. In early December 2021, Royole was in a crisis. The crisis was triggered by a letter of help from a "salary seeking" call from a royole employee who claimed to be engaged in manpower management at Royole.
The letter of help said, "At present, the company has owed nearly a thousand people wages, from cleaning, security, management personnel salaries, the arrears of up to nearly half a year without paying wages." ”
The matter was also confirmed by Liu Zihong, the founder, chairman and CEO of the company. In the early morning of December 9, 2021, Liu Zihong quoted "Musk Recalls the Edge of Bankruptcy: Waking Up Every Day and Crying in a Dream All Night" on his personal social media, and posted: In fact, everyone has had an easy time. In the darkest moments of life, don't expect to send charcoal in the snow, the only thing you can do is to stick to the end and never give up.
Since then, it has been reported on the Internet that Songhe Capital, which participated in the three rounds of financing of Royole Technology A, B and C, is leading existing shareholders and interested investors to carry out a new round of convertible bond financing.
That is to say, Royole, a star startup in the field of flexible screens and one of the "four little dragons" in Shenzhen, the capital chain has entered a very tense situation, which can be said to have entered the darkest moment.
It has been blocked by the IPO of the Science and Technology Innovation Board
Royole's most recent move in the capital market was to sprint to the listing of the science and technology innovation board and encounter obstacles.
In January 2021, Royole submitted a prospectus to the Science and Technology Innovation Board to prepare for listing in China.
Royole plans to raise 14.434 billion yuan, of which 460 million yuan is used for flexible cutting-edge technology research and development projects, 4.939 billion yuan for flexible display base upgrade and expansion construction projects, 1.124 billion yuan for flexible technology enterprise solution development projects, 710 million yuan for new generation flexible intelligent terminal development projects, and 7.2 billion yuan for supplementary working capital.
However, Royole's financing appetite and its own performance are really difficult to match.
According to the prospectus, royole technology's revenue in 2017, 2018 and 2019 was 64.7267 million yuan, 109 million yuan and 227 million yuan, respectively; the net loss was 359 million yuan, 800 million yuan and 1.073 billion yuan, respectively.
Royole Technology's revenue for the first half of 2020 was 116 million yuan; net loss was 960 million yuan. This means that Royole Technology has lost more than 2.8 billion yuan in two and a half years.
Even looking at the net loss after deducting non-deductions, it is not optimistic. Royole's net profit attributable to the common shareholders of the parent company after deducting non-recurring gains and losses in 2017, 2018, 2019 and the first half of 2020 was -359 million yuan, -780 million yuan, -986 million yuan and -744 million yuan, respectively.
The prospectus also discloses royole equity, as of the beginning of 2021, CITIC Capital holds 6.05% of the shares, WEI PENG (Wei Peng) holds 4.97%, Shenzhen Venture Capital holds 4.64%, and Yu Xiaojun holds 4.47%;
Shenzhen Huigang holds 4.06% of the shares, Jackand Fischer holds 3.79%, Shenzhen Songhe holds 3.60%, Tibet Xiangsheng holds 2.53%, Yang Leyi holds 2.17%, Shenzhen Laterite holds 2.09%, Fengke Fuhui holds 2.08%, and SunFaith holds 2.06%;
Fan Junchao held 1.66% of the shares, China Merchants Asset Management and Zhuhai Kangyang held 1.27% of the shares, and Alpha Wealth held 1.14% of the shares.
Then, less than 2 months after the prospectus was submitted, the SSE issued an announcement saying that royole and the sponsor CITIC Securities had submitted applications to the SSE to withdraw their application documents for listing on the Star Market on February 9, 2021.
Behind Royole's withdrawal of the application for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, after the listing of Ant Group encountered obstacles, the listing requirements of the Science and Technology Innovation Board became more stringent, and Royole was spot checked. Of course, another reason is that royole listing bubble is very large.
At that time, Lei Di Network had posted that Royole sought listing on the science and technology innovation board at such a high valuation, was it the courage given by Liang Jingru. Once Royole is listed with a market value of 100 billion yuan, it may leave a big bubble. And a song "Cool" may best express the mood of Royole management and investors in the face of obstacles to listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.
Of course, choosing to submit a prospectus to the Sci-Tech Innovation Board is not Royole's original choice. Royole was once preparing to list on the U.S. stock market, but finally chose to give up.
Frozen three feet, not a day's cold
The listing encountered obstacles, but only one reason for royole today's situation, the core reason is that Royole's own hematopoietic ability is not strong, and the product has not been tested by the market.
Royole was founded in Silicon Valley, Shenzhen and Hong Kong in 2012, and in September 2017, Royole signed a contract with China CITIC Bank Co., Ltd., Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, and Ping An Bank, plus some of the completed D round equity financing, adding a total of 800 million US dollars in new Series D financing.
In March 2018, AMTD Group, a subsidiary of Li Ka-shing, also made a strategic investment in Royole Technology. By the time of the E round, Royole Technology was valued at about $5 billion.
In October 2018, Royole released the world's first consumer-grade mass production folding screen mobile phone FlexPai, and mass-produced in the first quarter of 2019, which is the world's first mass-produced folding screen mobile phone.
In January 2019, the unveiling of Xiaomi's dual-folding mobile phone caused great concern and also triggered a rebound from Royole. At that time, Liu Zihong said in the circle of friends, "When they go low, we go hard." Liu Zihong also said: "No one will offend me, I will not offend anyone, and if a person offends me, he will be punished from afar."
The market is very optimistic about the folding screen, but the ideal is very plump, and the reality is very bone. It is almost 2022, folding screen mobile phones have not been popularized in the market, and Royole's products are not selling well.
According to royole's previous financial report, during the reporting period, the company's inventory book value was 103 million yuan, 165 million yuan, 595 million yuan and 480 million yuan, respectively, and the overall inventory showed a growth trend.
Royole is often questioned by the outside world as a scam company
Royole's reputation in the industry is not good, and it is often often called a well-known scam company in Shenzhen, so much so that Professor Liu Shuwei has been controversial because of his appointment as an independent director of Royole, and he has to come out to clarify the doubts.
On November 21, 2021, Liu Shuwei responded at noon on November 21 in the circle of friends that she agreed to serve as an independent director of Royole Technology in 2020 because she saw that the company's research and development capabilities were relatively strong.
Regarding the withdrawal of the application for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, Liu Shuwei said that the main reason is that royole technology has a situation of "three types of shareholders at the direct level" in terms of shareholder structure, and at present, China has yet to introduce relevant laws and regulations to solve the problem of companies including three types of shareholders applying for listing.
"I believe that by the end of my term as an independent director in 2026, Royole Technology will be able to grow into a company that we are proud of, allowing us to see the wide application of flexible technology in various fields." I also believe that Royole Technology will give investors the expected return on investment. ”
Embarrassingly, Liu Shuwei said that Royole will bring investors the expected return on investment, less than 1 month, Royole itself has a problem.
Royole's last fundraising was in the fourth quarter of 2019, when Royole made a voice, saying that it had completed a $300 million financing and was valued at $6 billion. This means that Royole has not received any financing for a full 2 years.
Royole is vain, but it has not been able to verify its strength in the market for a long time, and since 2021, the entire capital market has become cold, and the situation facing Royole is also worse, it can be said that today's days are difficult.
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Lei Di was founded by veteran media person Lei Jianping, if reprinted, please indicate the source.