Recently, a news of Tesla's acquisition of Zotye Automobile spread online, accompanied by relevant documents and the signature of Zhu Xiaotong, president of Tesla Greater China, and also stamped with the company seal of "Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd."
On March 13, Tao Lin, Tesla's vice president of external affairs, debunked the rumors through her personal Weibo: "naked fake news."
Although it was clarified as a rumor, the company's stock price opened low and went up and down on March 14, especially under the premise of the current market plunge. In fact, although Zotye Automobile is deeply in debt crisis, the company still has a lot of high-quality assets and technical reserves, Zotye Automobile has announced its nine production bases, which are located in Yongkang, Hangzhou, Changsha, Daye, Chongqing, Jinhua, Linyi, Xiangyang and Guigang.
Since the establishment of the reorganization plan of Zotye, there have been repeated rumors that the company will be acquired by a certain car company, including Tesla, Xiaomi, Weilai, Baoneng, Ningde Times and so on.
Some people believe that Tesla has a need for acquisitions, according to data from the Association on March 8, Tesla China's wholesale volume reached 56,515 units in February, with sales of more than 50,000 units for six consecutive months. Among them, the export volume of the month was 33315 vehicles, an increase of 339% year-on-year, and the domestic retail sales volume was 23200 vehicles. Two days later, Tesla China officially announced that the high-end Model 3 and Y both rose by 10,000 yuan. Even so, Tesla's official website in China shows that the current model 3 full series and Model Y long-endurance version is expected to deliver up to 16-20 weeks; the maximum waiting time for the Model Y rear-wheel drive version and the high-performance version has reached 14 weeks and 16 weeks, respectively. In order to meet the rising order volume, Tesla is also looking for ways to increase production capacity.
From unlimited scenery to debt
Zotye Automobile, a domestic automobile brand that once had unlimited scenery, opened the market by imitating luxury brand cars, and "Baoshitai" was even more famous, comparable to the shape of first-class brands, and indeed attracted a large number of users. In 2017, the company ushered in a highlight moment, with operating income reaching 20.8 billion yuan, an increase of 1128% year-on-year, and net profit reaching 1.256 billion yuan, an increase of 1347% year-on-year.
However, the good times are not long in 2018, the revenue and profit of Zotye Automobile began to decline, but it is normal for a company's performance to have a certain adjustment. What is abnormal is the deduction of non-net profit loss of 1.24 billion yuan, that is, the company's main loss.
By 2019, there were major problems in the company's operation, and the company's performance plummeted in revenue of only 2.986 billion yuan in the year, and the peak in 2017, plummeted by more than 80%. The net profit loss reached a staggering 11.19 billion yuan, which was jaw-dropping.
For the change in performance, the company's annual report said that the main reason is that due to the impact of the macroeconomic situation, the overall prosperity of the automotive industry is not high, the industry competition is becoming increasingly fierce, and the company's liquidity shortage and other factors have led to a sharp decline in the company's vehicle sales, which has not met expectations. Due to the sharp decline in sales, the company's operating income fell sharply, and the operating costs rose relatively, resulting in large operating losses. The second is to make provisions for the impairment of large amounts of goodwill and other asset impairment provisions.
Wang Yongbin, president of Zhonghe Zhengdao, believes that due to the company's obsession with imitation and lack of core technology training, with the expansion of the scale of the company's product quality, there were no small problems, and the market gradually shrank, resulting in a lack of liquidity, interest-bearing liabilities full overdue, production and operation stagnation and many other problems, in 2020, Zotye Automobile and its subsidiaries fell into a debt crisis, and the vehicle business basically stagnated. According to the data, in 2021, the annual sales of Hanteng Automobile under Zotye will only be 748 units, 892 Mahayana Cars, and Hanlong Automobile has stopped production in 2020.
On the evening of December 23, 2020, Zotye issued an announcement that the parent company, Iron Bull Group, was ruled by the Yongkang court to terminate the reorganization procedure and was declared bankrupt due to its serious insolvency, lack of ability to continue to operate, and lack of possibility of rescue.
In June 2021, the court accepted the reorganization application for Zotye Automobile. Huang Jihong, the owner of Jiangsu Shenzhen Commercial Holding Group Co., Ltd., is a restructuring investor and joins Zotye Automobile, bringing valuable 2 billion yuan of funds to the company. It is worth mentioning that Zotye Automobile's stock price soared in 2021, rushing to the lowest point of more than one piece and the highest rise to more than 9 blocks, becoming a veritable king of up and down, and also bringing confidence to all parties to the reorganization.
On December 28, 2021, Zotye Automobile issued an announcement that the Jinhua Intermediate People's Court ruled that the implementation of the company's reorganization plan had been completed. At the same time, the company said that after the reorganization, if the company's financial indicators do not meet the relevant regulations of listed companies, there is still a risk of being delisted.
Zhou Dewen, chairman of the board of directors of Zhonghe Zhengdao, said: The recent turmoil in Russia and Ukraine has also strengthened the countries to get rid of oil, accelerate the development of the new energy industry, superimpose carbon neutrality planning and many other factors, and the entire new energy automobile industry will continue to accelerate its development.
Compared with some PPT car manufacturers, Zotye Automobile has a production base with a production capacity of one million and relatively perfect technical reserves, which still has high value for enterprises that want to expand production capacity and cut into the market.
The restructuring plan has largely alleviated the debt crisis of Zotye Automobile, but with only 2 billion yuan of funds, it is far from enough to revitalize Zotye Automobile.
At present, the biggest crisis of Zotye is that the production capacity is in a state of suspension, and a large amount of liquidity is needed to revitalize the enterprise. At the same time, the company's technology has been relatively backward, and a lot of funds are needed for technological upgrading. If you have been in this state and have no hematopoietic ability, the final outcome must be "death".
Restoring hematopoietic capacity is a top priority, although it cannot fully resume production, but the company can restore some parts processing and OEM links on the basis of the original, and slowly and gradually recover, so that all parties can also see a glimmer of hope.