On December 30, Shenyang's Renault Brilliance Jinbei Co., Ltd. filed for bankruptcy, and the court was the Intermediate People's Court of Shenyang City, Liaoning Province.
The company has been suspending employees' wages since December 20, and suppliers have sued them for arrears.
According to media reports, Schgomey, CEO of the Renault Brilliance Gold Cup, has "hurriedly" left China and returned to France for Christmas, and he will no longer meet China, but will go to the United Kingdom.
Schgemey
Schgemeer has been the CEO of Renault Brilliance Since May 18, 2020, he joined the Renault Group in 1994, and before coming to China, he has worked in France, Spain, South Africa, Turkey and India, and has considerable experience. But he did not change the fate of the company, from 2018 to 2020, Brilliance Renault Jinbei car sales fell for three consecutive years, from 43,000 to 23,000.
Perhaps the fate of Renault Brilliance has already paved the way in 2020. The joint venture, which was established in December 2017, has Brilliance Group holding 51% of the shares and Renault Group holding 49% of the shares.
In 2020, brilliance group and Renault group were both hit by the market, and on November 20 of that year, brilliance group announced bankruptcy reorganization. Renault Also suffered the largest annual loss in history – 2020 revenue of 43.47 billion euros, down 21.7% year-on-year, a loss of 8.05 billion euros, in order to reduce losses, Renault Group also sold a building of the company's headquarters in 2020, and it was in this building that the Renault brothers started their business in 1898. Renault had never been so embarrassed in many years.
The two parent companies are so bleak, how good can Renault Brilliance Gold Cup Company be? It's just that it's late winter, and I don't know if those employees who are owed to the company can survive the winter safely.
We would also like to take stock of Renault's "small defeats" in the Chinese market:
This should be divided into three business lines: light commercial vehicles, passenger cars and new energy vehicles.
Renault first entered the Chinese market in 1993, when they established a joint venture with Sanjiang Aerospace to establish Sanjiang Renault Automobile Company, and began to produce light commercial vehicles in 1994, the first model was Renault Tafik, the original plan was 40,000 units per year, but the cumulative sales volume of this car in the next 8 years was only 4112 units.
Reynolds Tafik
The reason is that its production cost is very high, and many spare parts are imported from abroad. In August 2000, Sanjiang Group, which could not bear the losses of consecutive years, announced its withdrawal from Sanjiang Renault Automobile Company.
Since then, Renault has also intended to enter the Chinese passenger car market, but their cooperation with Dongfeng Motor Group has waited for 8 years until 2013, when it was approved, and the two sides established the Dongfeng Renault brand, each holding 50% of the shares. It mainly produces fuel-fueled passenger cars.
In 2016, Dongfeng Renault launched two SUV models, Correga and Coreo, and in 2017 they received sales of 72,000 units, when Dongfeng Renault was full of confidence and even shouted out the rhetoric of increasing sales to 400,000 units in 2022.
Unfortunately, no one expected that 2017 was already their peak, in 2018 and 2019, Dongfeng Renault's sales fell for 2 consecutive years, 50,000 and 18,000 vehicles respectively, in April 2020, Dongfeng Renault directly announced restructuring and stopped business, overshadowingly withdrew from the Chinese fuel passenger car market.
In 2017, Renault was obsessed with the light commercial vehicle market, and there was a joint venture with Brilliance Group to establish Renault Brilliance Gold Cup Company. In April 2020, after Renault abandoned Dongfeng Renault, it announced that they had two strategic priorities in the Chinese market: the light commercial vehicle business led by Renault Brilliance Jinbei and the electric vehicle business of EasyJet New Energy and Jiangling Group.
As a result, 1 year and 8 months passed, and Renault Brilliance Gold Cup Company was also bankrupt.
Finally, there is Renault's new energy vehicle business in the Chinese market.
In 2017, EasyJet New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. was established, a joint venture formed by Dongfeng Motor and Renault-Nissan Alliance, with Dongfeng holding 50% of the shares, and Renault and Nissan each holding 25% of the shares. At present, the company's development is relatively smooth, exporting 22,000 vehicles in the first nine months of 2021, and by October this year, its factory has been able to roll off the production line of 24 new energy vehicles per hour.
In 2019, Renault also increased its capital by 1 billion yuan to become a shareholder of Jiangling Group New Energy Automobile Company, holding 50% of the shares. However, according to data from the Huajing Industry Research Institute, the passenger car production of Jiangxi Jiangling Group New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. in the first 10 months of 2019, 2020 and 2021 was 14780, 1844 and 2352 respectively. Sales were 13,360 units, 1,418 units, and 2,561 units, respectively. After Renault's capital increase, their production declined significantly.
On December 29, 2020, the automotive media BusinessCar reported that "Renault insiders revealed that 'the reason why the joint venture between Renault Electrification and Jiangling has not made progress so far is mainly due to the impact of the incident of Carlos Ghosn, former Renault chairman and CEO, which has led to a partial stagnation in Renault's progress in China'".
Carlos Ghosn was arrested by the Japanese police for understating 8 billion yen (about 500 million yuan) in eight years, and fled to Lebanon in 2019 through secret means.
Unexpectedly, such an international farce actually produced a "butterfly effect" in China's new energy vehicle market.
All in all, Renault's experience in the Chinese market for many years is indeed a bit unlucky.