【Introduction: In the last few days of 2021, Bojun Automobile was filed for bankruptcy reorganization, and the applicant was Nanjing Shengshi Yangzi New Energy Automobile Industry Investment Fund, which is also the sixth largest shareholder of Bojun Automobile, with a shareholding ratio of 5.2%.] Bo County Automobile, which has been trapped in the whirlpool of "unpaid wages" and "layoffs", has not escaped the fate of being out of the game after all. 】
Written| by Cai Jialun and editor | Hezi
Time back to April 2019, at the press conference at that time, Bojun Automobile announced that it has built three highly flexible and scalable platforms of i-SP, i-MP and i-LP, and will be derived from dozens of models covering the three mainstream market segments of A-class, B-class and C-class in the future. At the same time, Bo County Motors released two new cars. According to the plan, Bojun Automobile's first model, the iV6, will be officially mass-produced in Tianjin at the end of 2019, and delivery will begin in the first quarter of 2020. According to public information, Bojun Automobile has experienced 6 rounds of financing since its inception, and the latest round has received 2.5 billion yuan of funds led by Yin'an Capital, Shengshi Investment, Pukou High Investment, Sumitomo Corporation Asia Capital, Yuanxing Investment and other capitals.
In September 2019, Bojun signed an agreement with FAW Xiali to formally establish a joint venture company "Tianjin Bojun Automobile Co., Ltd." with a registered capital of 2.540 billion yuan, Bojun invested 2.034 billion yuan in cash, with a shareholding ratio of 80.1%, and FAW Xiali invested 505 million yuan in vehicle-related land, plant, equipment and other assets and liabilities, with a shareholding ratio of 19.9%. According to the agreement, within 30 days from the date of obtaining the business license, Bojun Automobile must complete the initial payment of 1 billion yuan, and the remaining payment of 1.0344 billion yuan needs to be completed within 6 months. At this point, Bojun Automobile officially has the qualification of car manufacturing, and has planned two pure electric vehicles, iV6 and iV7.
However, according to the announcement issued by FAW Xiali on May 28, 2020, Bojun Automobile only paid 14.1 million yuan to Tianjin Bojun in monetary terms. FAW Xiali has sent two official letters and three lawyer letters to Bojun Automobile, requesting Bojun Automobile to fulfill its capital contribution obligations in accordance with the shareholders' agreement. Xiali stressed that if Bo County Automobile continues to default, it has the right to terminate the agreement.
It is not difficult to see that from the beginning of its establishment, the funds of Bo County Automobile are not abundant, which must be difficult in the car-making industry that spends money like flowing water.
The flow of funds is seriously insufficient
The predecessors of Bojun Automobile are American Advanced Vehicle Technology Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Sizhi Automotive Engineering Technology Co., Ltd., which were established in 2007 and 2008. The founder of these two companies, Huang Ximing, has worked for Ford Motor and General Motors for more than ten years in the United States, and he himself has very deep experience in the automotive industry, which is regarded as having an innate advantage. At the same time, from the perspective of time, 2016 is a big year for China's new energy car manufacturing, and all parties and capital participation are enthusiastic and have joined the ranks of new energy car manufacturing. Bo County's car got up early and also rushed to the early set, but why is it still facing bankruptcy reorganization.
One of the biggest problem points is that the capital chain of Bo County Automobile has been difficult. It should be known that automobiles are capital-intensive, technology-intensive and long-term investment return cycle industries, "burning money" is the only way, which tests the ability of car companies to store grain and grass for a long time. For the new car-making forces, financing and capital management are very important. However, Bo County Automobile's "verbal investment" exceeds 20 billion yuan, while the actual investment is less than 3 billion; at the same time, the other side of Bo County Automobile is still expanding drastically. Bojun Automobile has set up R&D centers, marketing centers, manufacturing plants and other institutions in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Huai'an and Detroit, respectively, realizing the global layout of the two countries and five places. In addition, Bo County also started construction of a manufacturing plant covering an area of 1,300 acres in Nanjing. It is conceivable that Bo County Automobile, which operates in this way, will of course be constrained by financial problems.
The starting mode is difficult, and Bo County is difficult to maintain
In fact, for most of the new car-making forces, there are financial problems. In order to disperse the pressure of funds, many new forces of head car manufacturing choose to find foundries to produce vehicles and find third-party battery manufacturers at the beginning of entrepreneurship to disperse their own factory construction and supply chain pressure. However, Bo County is more "head iron" and chose the difficult starting mode at the beginning.
It is reported that shortly after the establishment of Bo county automobile announced that it will invest 10 billion yuan to build a pure electric vehicle manufacturing base in Nanjing; in July 2017, its investment company Sixun New Energy settled in Huai'an High-tech Zone, with a total investment of about 5 billion yuan; in November 2018, Bo county automobile announced the construction of a new production base of Bo county automobile in the Lingang Industrial Zone, with a total investment scale of about 3.5 billion yuan. Such a large-scale operation also shocked the industry, which also laid the groundwork for the failure of Bo County.
The market competition is fierce, and capital investment is rational
In addition to its own reasons, the rapid failure of Bo County Automobile is also due to the fierce external competition. Before 2018, the new forces of head car manufacturing did not have so much market influence; but after entering 2018, the new forces of head car manufacturing began to exert large-scale force. For example, Weilai Automobile, its Weilai ES8, ES6 and other models, began to become the first choice of many cutting-edge consumers; Xiaopeng came to the fore with Xiaopeng P7, Xiaopeng G3i and other models, and even Xiaopeng P7 This model makes Tesla feel pressure; as for the ideal, although it only has an ideal ONE model, the ideal ONE has handed over a beautiful answer sheet in 2021, and even became the first place in domestic medium and large SUV sales.
At the same time that the new forces of head car manufacturing began to exert their strength, traditional giants such as Geely, BYD and Changan also strengthened their new energy vehicle market layout, leaving little opportunity for Bo county automobile.
At the same time as the market competition is extremely fierce, the capital that once strongly supported the new car-making forces has also begun to return to rationality. At the beginning, as long as there were new energy vehicle projects, capital would "rush" to invest; but with the gradual standardization of the market, capital began to tend to be cautious. For the new car-making forces that are not optimistic or well-known, the support of capital has also weakened.
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In fact, the bankruptcy of Bo County Automobile is not an isolated case, and more and more new energy vehicle brands have begun to withdraw from the market. Vehicle manufacturing is originally a capital-intensive industry, the technical threshold is high; after the boom recedes, naked swimmers have appeared one after another, which is a normal phenomenon. And looking at the new domestic car-making forces, there are almost no profits that can be profitable at present, which also sounded the alarm bell for all entrants.
(This article is the original of "Heyan Reading Car", without authorization, it may not be reproduced)