On the evening of March 13, in response to the news that Tesla had been rumored for a year to acquire Zotye Automobile, Tao Lin, tesla's vice president of external affairs, responded for the first time on her Weibo, "Naked fake news." ”
In addition, that night, Tao Lin also debunked rumors that the content of the "Letter of Commitment" recently circulated on the Internet about Tesla and Zotye Automobile on the production of new energy pure electric cars was not true, and the signature and official seal were also forged, and they had been suspected of committing crimes.
The reporter learned from a lawyer that the forgery of official seals involves criminal liability, and is generally sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of less than three years, criminal detention, public surveillance or deprivation of political rights, and a fine. Tao Lin said on her Weibo that netizens are welcome to prove to her who is the concoction of this document? What is the purpose? It will promptly report the case to the public security organs.
After debunking the rumors, it continued to rise and fall
It is reported that the above document is a "letter of commitment" signed by the Zhejiang Provincial Market Supervision and Administration Bureau and Zotye Automobile, which includes "not engaging in relevant business activities before obtaining approval procedures", and the official seal of Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. is stamped at the place of payment, and the signer is Zhu Xiaotong, the legal representative of Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
In response to the above documents, on the afternoon of March 10, Zotye Automobile also responded to investors on interactive easy, saying, "The company has not heard of signing a letter of commitment with the Zhejiang Provincial Market Supervision and Administration Bureau." ”
However, the year-long rumor of "Tesla's acquisition of Zotye", coupled with the stamped document "corroboration", on March 10, *ST Zotye stock price changed its downward trend, and quickly rose shortly after the opening of the day, and continued to rise and fall within three trading days. On March 14, even though Tesla has come forward to debunk the rumors, *ST Zotye still quickly rose to the limit after the opening, and is now quoted at 3.99 yuan, with a total market value of 20.2 billion yuan.
In fact, since Zotye Automobile fell into a debt crisis in 2019, it has been rumored that many companies have participated in its restructuring, including Baoneng, Weilai, Tesla, Geely, Xiaomi, etc. Even after Zotye Automobile was acquired by Shenzhen Commercial Group, there was still continuous news in the market.
In February this year, the news of Great Wall Motor's acquisition of Zotye Linyi Factory disappeared. In late February, Zotye Automobile issued a clarification announcement saying, "Neither the company nor its subordinate Jiangnan Linyi Branch nor Zhuotai Automobile Sales Company has signed any strategic agreements with Great Wall Motors." ”
In addition, Zotye Automobile also added that the two companies have stopped production and work for a long time, and there are basically no production and operation activities.
The reason why Zotye Automobile will be "chased" by market news is closely related to its car-making qualifications and multiple production bases across the country. Zotye Automobile has replied to investors that the company currently has 9 production bases, which are in Yongkang, Hangzhou, Changsha, Daye, Chongqing, Jinhua, Linyi, Xiangyang and Guigang.
An important prerequisite for the news of Tesla's acquisition of Zotye Automobile is that the former urgently needs to expand production capacity, and the location of Tesla's second factory has been rumored for a year, and the final city has not yet been determined. In addition, some analysts pointed out that the rumor is also based on the three major bases of Zotye Automobile Yongkang, Jinhua and Hangzhou, which are close to Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory and the liberalization of the stock ratio of the automobile industry.
The Shenzhen Commercial Group, which participated in the bankruptcy reorganization of Zotye Automobile last year, also favored its production qualifications.
Shenzhen Commercial Group once pointed out that spending 2 billion yuan to enter Zotye Automobile is to obtain automobile production qualifications and produce and sell complete vehicles.
After the reorganization, found Bo County?
At the end of 2021, Zotye Automobile officially completed the restructuring. However, the restructured Zotye Automobile is still a "mess", first of all, the funds are still tight, its cumulative loss from 2019 to 2020 is 22 billion yuan, although the restructuring in 2021 is expected to generate revenue of 2 billion to 2.4 billion yuan, but in the end it is still a pre-loss of 400 million to 600 million yuan.
Secondly, although there are many production bases under Zotye Automobile, they are basically in a state of suspension.
At present, it has been more than 3 months since the completion of the reorganization, in the face of the frequent investors to ask about the "resumption of work and production" problem, recently, Zotye Automobile said on the interactive easy that the company has been making preparations for the resumption of work and production, but there is no specific time to disclose.
The reporter learned that at present, on a recruitment website, Shanghai Junqu Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Junqu") is recruiting people on a large scale under the "banner" of "the business entity after the reorganization of the original Zotye Automobile". According to the information of Tianyancha, Shanghai Junqu is indeed wholly owned by Zotye Automobile, which was established in August 2020 with a registered capital of 1 million yuan.
Shanghai Junqu said in the company's introduction column that it has made every effort to enter the new energy vehicle market by introducing strategic partners with rich experience in electric vehicle research and development experience and mature electric vehicle technology reserves.
Zotye Automobile responded to investors on interactive easy-to-do, saying that the acquisition of Shanghai and Junqu Company was decided based on the actual situation of the company's development, but Zotye Automobile did not give a clear reply to who the strategic partner mentioned by Shanghai Junqu was. Some analysts said that this may be Bo county automobile, which has already entered the bankruptcy liquidation procedure, because most of the 7 companies where Wu Yunfei, the legal representative of Shanghai Junqu, works are related to Huang Ximing, the founder of Bo county automobile.
On March 14, Yang Haifeng, secretary of the board of directors of Zotye Automobile, told the first financial reporter that the company's acquisition of Shanghai Junqu is true, but there is no further news on the market about the cooperation between the company and Bojun Automobile.
According to public information, Bojun Automobile was established in December 2016, and the capital chain was broken in 2020. At present, Bojun Automobile has 2 bankruptcy reorganization information, the applicants are Nanjing Shengshi Yangzi New Energy Automobile Industry Investment Fund (Limited Partnership), and the latest public date is February this year. The court has accepted the application for bankruptcy liquidation of Bo County Automobile, and the case is currently in the stage of creditor declaration.
Auto analyst Zhang Xiang told the first financial reporter that Bo county automobile was stranded in the door before mass production, but its technical accumulation is still there, this part of the assets can be used to revitalize to repay debts or make up for shareholder losses, and Zotye Automobile new energy technology platform is relatively backward, basically eliminated, there is a complementary relationship between the two, but whether the "weak and weak alliance" can still have results still need to play a question mark.
Shanghai Junqu said that today, it has set up a research and development center in Shanghai Pudong New Area, and has carried out a large number of user research, industrial chain research and product planning in the early stage, and has the ability to develop cross-platform multi-model synchronously. At present, its Shanghai R&D center is recruiting talents for the market, and it is expected that the team size will reach 500 people by the end of this year and more than 1500 people by the end of 2025.