FF91 booking data is fake, claiming 14,000 orders, but only a few hundred people actually paid

Author: Gong Jinhui

Don't look at the FF car-making ability under Jia Yueting, but it can always attract the attention of all parties. At the beginning of the Year of the Tiger, the newly released findings of the special committee formed by the FF Independent Board of Directors have attracted attention from the outside world.

In October last year, J Capital Research, a SHORT-selling agency in the United States, released a 28-page short-selling report, which questioned FF's research and development investment, production capacity, capital operation performance and founder Jia Yueting himself, arguing that FF could not sell a single car.

In response to outside concerns, FF has set up a special committee of independent directors to investigate the allegations. After more than three months of investigation, the Special Committee came to two important conclusions:

1. For the business merger between FF and PSAC in July 2021, the information about Jia Yueting's role in the company released by some company employees to some investors was inaccurate, and Jia Yueting's participation in the management of the company after the merger was greater than that shown to some investors.

2. The Company's statement prior to the business consolidation stated that more than 14,000 bookings for FF 91 vehicles had been received could be misleading, as only a few hundred of those bookings had been paid, while the others (in total 14,000) had not been paid.

First of all, in September 2019, Jia Yueting stepped down as FF Global CEO and became CPUO (Chief Product and User Officer), and the CEO position was taken over by former BMW executive Bi Fukang. It is reported that CPUO is a newly established position, mainly responsible for the overall implementation of the Internet ecosystem strategy, leading artificial intelligence, product definition, user acquisition, user experience and user operation and other related work.

After assuming the position of global CEO of FF, Bi Fukang will fully lead the company's core team to achieve strategic goals, continue to build industry-leading technologies and products, manage the efficient operation of the management team, and focus on promoting the financing activities that were underway at that time.

It is not difficult to see that Bi Fukang and Jia Yueting have a clear division of labor, each responsible for their own areas of expertise, the former is responsible for the business of traditional automobiles with advantages such as automobile research and development and manufacturing, and the latter is responsible for related businesses with strong Internet advantages. Logically, Bi Fukang is the leader of FF, but from the investigation results released by the special committee, Jia Yueting is the actual controller of FF, and serving as a CPUO does not mean that his power is restricted, and his right to speak is even higher than That of Bi Fukang.

But unfortunately, when FF was listed in July last year, the role of Jia Yueting was not fully demonstrated to some investors, or it was deliberately diluted and concealed, which is one of the core concerns of investors. It should be known that FF financing has not been smooth before, and an important reason is that investors are worried that Jia Yueting, whose reputation is bankrupt, is still firmly in control of FF.

The second point, to put it bluntly, is that the FF91 booking data is falsified, and the vast majority of unpaid orders are also counted, and there are only a few hundred real and effective orders. People familiar with Jia Yueting know that marketing false prosperity or exaggerated publicity is his usual operation trick, and he was "tried and tested" during his time at the helm of LeTV. Of course, it is inevitable that it will always be questioned by the outside world.

A real hammer is that in April last year, the regulator imposed heavy penalties on LeTV, and due to ten consecutive years of financial fraud and non-public issuance fraud, LeTV and Jia Yueting were fined 240 million yuan respectively. As soon as the news was announced, it immediately shocked the industry, and it turned out that Jia Yueting had played such a fraudulent set of 666 that it could last for ten years.

Today, the real booking data of FF91 has surfaced, and there are only a few hundred, representing its average popularity, and there is no highly sought after by Jia Yueting, which will directly affect FF91 to seize the high-end luxury car market. He has said more than once that FF 91 will subvert traditional ultra-luxury car brands such as Maybach, Ferrari and Bentley.

Obviously, FF91 has hundreds of orders, and it is difficult to break the wrist with Maybach, Ferrari and Bentley, and subversion is impossible to talk about, which is undoubtedly a huge blow to Jia Yueting, who is determined to win. In addition to the above two conclusions directly confronting FF officials, the special committee's investigation report basically supports FF, emphasizing that other allegations facing the company, including the previous short report of J Capital Research, have not been supported by the review evidence.

In my opinion, for the ill-fated FF, the investigation report released by the Special Committee is mixed, and its top priority is to fully promote the mass production of FF91 and ensure that it will be delivered on schedule in July this year, which is a prerequisite for it to prove itself, in addition to submitting the 2021 Q3 financial report and the revised investor statement as soon as possible.

As of the close of trading on February 2, FF closed at $4.22, and its stock price fell by more than 76% in the six months of listing, with a market value of $1.369 billion. It is foreseeable that Jia Yueting will still face severe challenges in the future, it is not easy to build a car, FF and build and cherish!