The land of Shenzhou is in a peaceful atmosphere at the beginning of the Year of the Tiger, while Jia Yueting, who is far away in the United States, may not feel the slightest joy.
On February 2, the official website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission released a thunderous forecast - a special committee composed of the independent directors of Faraday Future (FF) has completed an investigation, and during the review process, it was found that there were some inaccuracies in the company's investor statements, mainly focusing on untrue order information and corporate culture issues within the company.
The old tradition usually believes that the honmei year will be too old, which seems to be due to Jia Yueting, who ushered in a heavy blow at the beginning of the year of the tiger.
01 FF was counterfeited
In October 2021, J Capital Research, a professional short-selling organization in the United States, released a 28-page short-selling report, questioning a number of FF capabilities from research and development investment to capital operation performance, and determining that FF was an "emerging electric vehicle scam".
FF immediately issued a clarification note, claiming that the allegations were untrue, and set up a special committee composed of independent directors to conduct an internal investigation into the overall operation of FF in response to the allegations in the short report.
Now, months later, the investigation has finally come to fruition.
According to the Special Commission's filing with the Securities and Exchange Association, FF's disclosures were dishonest and misleading in both the corporate culture system and past business statements.
The first is the order data problem about FF's main product FF 91.
The special committee said that FF had declared in a statement before merging with other companies that it had received more than 14,000 bookings for FF 91 vehicles, and that The list sister had previously written an article questioning this data, and now it seems to be really witty as me ("Jia Yueting is listed again!"). 2 million FF91s, surprisingly pre-sold so much! 》）。
Sure enough, after an investigation, this figure was misleading, as only a few hundred of them had actually been paid for, while about 13,000 of the others had gone unpaid.
The popular explanation is that the booking data of FF 91 is suspected of cost brushing.
In addition, the personnel relationship within FF is also a key issue.
In 2019, FF underwent a series of personnel changes, Jia Yueting resigned as CEO of FF and became the chief product and user experience officer - CPUO. Yes, you read that right, it is indeed CPUO, but it has nothing to do with the CPU we know, this position is a groundbreaking one, many people suspect that it was specially created for Jia Yueting, who retired as CEO and was reluctant to leave the rights center, in order to highlight his status as a "central processor".
After "Jabs" made a makeover as CPUO, the company's CEO was replaced by Bi Fukang. Of course, Jia Yueting's influence in FF has not weakened, the outside world still believes that he is the core boss, and among the company's executives, Wang Jiawei, vice president of FF's global capital markets, is Jia Yueting's nephew, maternal uncle, flesh and bone, broken bones and tendons...
In response to the current situation of FF, the Special Committee issued a series of changes:
1. Appoint an independent member of the Board of Directors Susan Susan Swenson assumes the newly created role of Executive Chairman, overseeing the Senior Executive Leadership Team.
2. Bi Fukang and Jia Yueting will report directly to Svensson in the future, and their annual basic salaries will be reduced by 25%.
3. Appoint Jordan Vogel as Lead Independent Director.
4. Jiawei Wang, Vice President of Global Capital Markets at FF, was suspended.
In addition to the major change of high-level personnel structure, for internal corporate governance, FF will upgrade its control over financial accounting and various reports. The third quarter 2021 financial report that FF failed to submit on time will be submitted as soon as possible and the previous investor statement will be revised.
It is worth mentioning that although the special committee pointed out that there are many internal problems in FF, FF still emphasizes that there is no evidence to support the short report previously released by J Capital Research, a short-selling agency.
I'm really confident.
02 The scene is familiar
Compared with the shock of the Americans, the domestic viewers who have experienced the ecological power of Jia Yueting have long been light.
Before FF, LeTV had been financially fraudulent for ten consecutive years, and had also engaged in a scandal of non-public issuance fraud, which made the credibility of "Jia Accounting" fall completely.
Since 2014, Jia Yueting has officially entered the new energy vehicle market, and its FF company launched the first model FF 91 in 2017, and then with the blessing of capital from all parties, FF has poached a lot of talents from BIG CAR companies such as BMW and Tesla, and the momentum is growing day by day.
On July 22, 2021, FF listed on the NASDAQ through a backdoor listing, with a market capitalization of $4.5 billion on that day. At the launch on the day of the launch, FF promised to deliver the highest-end FF 91 in the next 12 months. However, the FF 81 and Volkswagen's FF 71, which are positioned as high-end Volkswagen, are postponed until the end of 2023 and 2024, respectively.
In the chaotic war of new energy vehicles chasing deer, major automobile companies at home and abroad are desperate to make a new move and rush to land on the beach. In contrast, the development of FF seems to have stagnated, and the company's financial situation has also gone all the way down. In December last year, FF said at an investor briefing that from its inception to September 30, 2021, the company's cumulative loss reached $2.8 billion, and in the third quarter alone, it lost about $280 million, mainly due to the acquisition of a large number of manufacturing facilities to achieve commercial mass production.
But the amazing thing is that FF's investment in product research and development is very small compared with the amount of loss. In 2020, FF's R&D expenditure was just over $20 million, equivalent to about 130 million yuan, less than a fraction of Weilai's 2.6 billion yuan of R&D funds on the electric vehicle track.
But even so, there are still many investment companies that choose to continue to support Jia Yueting's blood transfusion, including many large business groups, such as Geely Holdings.
FF has been established for nearly 8 years. In the past 8 years, we have heard the wind and grass of FF cars from time to time, but they have never really been able to deliver a car. Whether the vehicles in those exquisite promotional films can go from the picture to reality has also become a mystery in the hearts of many people.
FF's repeated "pie painting" behavior has made many people who have witnessed leTV's "PPT" big scene feel familiar.
03 Conclusion
In the report of J Capital Researc, a professional short-selling organization in the United States, the opening paragraph defines Jia Yueting:
"Jia Yueting, China's most famous securities fraudster."
For this accusation, Jia Yueting once fought back on his social platform: "Cold rice is hot and fried, nonsense! ”
Jia Yueting is still as confident as ever, but the market has little confidence in him.
FF's share price has fallen all the way, and its market value has gone from $4.5 billion to $1.323 billion, which has evaporated by more than 70% so far. It is reported that some law firms have solicited information from investors and may file a class action lawsuit against FF in accordance with US securities-related laws and regulations.
There are only less than half a year left before FF has promised to deliver FF91.
Faraday Future, can there still be a future?