Yundu Automobile, which was once second only to Weilai, is coming to an end, who will be the next new force out?

Yundu Automobile, which sold 20,000 new energy vehicles in 2018, is becoming the first "new power company" to go out in 2022. A few days ago, the relevant person in charge of Yundu Automobile admitted that the news of the suspension of production was true, but said that "the company's suspension of production is mainly affected by the supply of batteries" and "it is expected to resume production around the end of June." ”

According to the data of the Association, the cumulative sales volume of Yundu Automobile's models in the first quarter was 516, of which the production and sales in March were zero. Haiyuan Composite, one of the company's shareholders, announced the transfer of equity in Yundu Automobile.

Previously, on April 13, 2022, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, made a surprising speech at the scene of the corporate global partner conference, mentioning that it is expected that in the next 3-5 years, 80% of automobile brands will face shutdown and turnaround.

Yundu Automobile is facing a dilemma. Once set off with Yundu Automobile, the momentum is fierce, but today it is silent, known as the third-line new force of Tianji Automobile, Aiways Automobile and other brands will go? Who will be the next enterprise in Zhu Huarong's mouth to "shut down and turn around"?

Yundu Automobile went from glory to loneliness, with executives leaving and poor financing

In 2015, the Cloud Degree Project was officially launched. In 2018, the company achieved sales of more than 7,000 new cars with π series of products, second only to Nio In the new power delivery list.

When people thought that the company was about to take off, the company fell silent, and in 2019, Yundu sold only 2566 vehicles, and from January to May 2020, Yundu sales were only three digits.

In July 2020, Lin Mi, former general manager of Yundu Automobile Marketing Company, returned as the general manager of the company, and brought zhan wenwen, former director of the new technology research department of BAIC Research Institute, Fu Zhenxing, former vice president of LeTV Automobile, and Zhang Zhen, former public relations director of Lynk & Co Automobile Sales Co., Ltd. Lin Mi once told the Shell Financial Reporter: "Where there is so much dog blood heroism, I really can't let go of my own child." ”

With the return of the forest, the cloud degree set sail again. In 2021, Yundu's car sales were 5361 units, a slight recovery, but it still did not return to the peak level of 2018. From January to March 2022, Yundu car sales were only 516 units, and in March, the production and sales were all zero.

A few days ago, Haiyuan Composite, one of the shareholders of Yundu Automobile, said in the "Announcement on the Establishment of Subsidiaries of the Company's Subsidiaries" that it transferred 11% of the shares held by Yundu Automobile to Zhuhai Yucheng Investment Center (Limited Partnership) for a transfer price of 22 million yuan. After the completion of this transaction, Haiyuan Composite no longer holds the equity of Yundu Automobile.

According to the data given by Haiyuan Composite, in 2021, the operating income of Yundu Automobile was 67.7632 million yuan, with a loss of about 213 million yuan; in the first quarter of 2022 (unaudited), the operating income was 6.6025 million yuan, with a loss of 55.7136 million yuan. As of March 31 this year (unaudited), The total assets of Yundu Automobile were about 1.652 billion yuan, the total liabilities were as high as 1.682 billion yuan, and the net assets were -30.7964 million yuan.

Mr. Liu (pseudonym), an insider of Yundu Automobile, told Shell Financial Reporter that the entry of JuneYao Group is basically a foregone conclusion. JuneYao Group's most well-known product is the JuneYao Flavored Power Lactic Acid Drink of Hubei JuneYao Grand Health Beverage Co., Ltd.

Insiders close to Yundu Automobile told Shell Financial Reporter that the company has also exchanged with investors many times in the past year, but the results are not too good. "Since breaking out and Xiaomi have negotiated relevant content, we have also talked about several big capitals, and the talk is relatively deep. But they have questions about our product lines and the company's subsequent development plans. In that case, we generally suspend the work in hand, but in the end, the relevant capital does not come in, slowing down the company's research and development and related progress. A retired Yundu automobile employee introduced the reason why Yundu automobile in his eyes was "slow" to the shell financial reporter.

The person said that Yundu only paid 50% of his salary in October 2021, and the two backbones of Zhan Wenwen and Zhang Zhen also left and joined the overseas teams of Ford China and Great Wall Motor respectively.

Mr. Liu believes that the reason why enterprises have not been able to introduce sufficient capital in the past is that on the one hand, the company's complex four-party shareholders, and interested enterprises have not joined because of internal efficiency, procedures and other issues.

According to public information, the previous shareholders of Yundu Automobile were Putian State-owned Assets Investment Group Co., Ltd., Fujian Longtou Industry Equity Investment Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership), Zhuhai Yucheng Investment Center (Limited Partnership), and Haiyuan Composite, with a shareholding ratio of about 43.44%, 30%, 15.56% and 11% respectively.

"JuneYao Group's entry is basically finalized, they are quite professional, and they also communicate well with shareholders." Mr. Liu said, "JuneYao Group may bring a new set of automobile teams, but the specific situation is still under discussion. ”

Talking about Yundu's "failure", Zhang Xiang, dean of the New Energy Vehicle Technology Research Institute of Jiangxi New Energy Technology Vocational College, believes that in the final analysis, it is still "product power". Yundu's earliest model is Yundu π1, which is a small SUV, the second product π3 is also a small SUV, the overall price is about 100,000 yuan, and BAIC BJEV's early products are similar, in the early years of the market competition, high subsidies in the period of certain sales and competitiveness. However, in terms of core technology, there is still a gap with other new energy vehicle brands such as Wei Xiaoli.

Shell financial reporter also tried to contact Lin Mi, general manager of Yundu Automobile, but as of press time, the other party did not reply.

The story of Yundu Automobile is over, who will be the next player to go out?

The decline of Yundu Automobile may only be the epitome of some new power companies "out" in the new era.

According to public data, in 2021, the sales of the three car companies of Tianji, Aiways and Skyworth were 1778 vehicles, 3011 vehicles and 6393 vehicles respectively, accounting for less than 0.5% of the total market; from January to March 2022, the sales of Tianji, Aiways and Skyworth were 1807, 564 and 3438 respectively.

The data reflects the plight of these companies. The difficulty of financing also shows the dilemma of enterprises. According to the company's investigation information, Tianji Automobile's latest round of financing was about 5 billion yuan in October 2020; AIWAYS Auto only received hundreds of millions of dollars in investment from individual investors and their subsidiaries in January 2022.

Compared with Aiways and Tianji, Skyworth has a certain financial strength behind it, and its performance is not too bad, but compared with Wei Xiaoli, which sells nearly 10,000 vehicles a month, there is still a big gap, and it is difficult for the market to see how the company will make up for this gap.

Zhu Yunyao, an expert at China Automobile Research Institute, said that each company has its own reasons. But in general, they have not really found the "charm point" of new energy vehicles, the product is still traditional, not favored by users; the second is not to keep up with the combination of intelligent electric, the early new energy to keep up, the late intelligence, automation can not keep up; there are a series of problems such as marketing, product positioning and so on.

Zhang Xiang believes that the capital and technology of enterprises are the core issues in which they cannot participate in market competition strongly. Due to the limited funds of enterprises, it is difficult to reach the more competitive level in the industry in terms of product design and construction, corporate publicity, and employee compensation.

Zhang Xiang mentioned that small and medium-sized enterprises in the industry today have no money, so they cannot recruit excellent employees, create high-quality products, and even marketing is very difficult. While some of these companies try to find another way and go to overseas markets, overseas markets such as Europe are more challenging for companies.

According to EU-EVS data, AIWAYS will sell only 555 vehicles in Europe in 2021.

Zhang Xiang believes that at present, the new forces of third-tier car manufacturing enterprises have a high probability of bankruptcy and closure, and a small number of them will be acquired. The industry is fiercely competitive, and only the head enterprises can survive.

Zhang Chi, chairman of Xinding Capital, told Shell Financial Reporter that compared with the second and third echelons of the new car-making forces that are relatively general in terms of sales and financing performance, financial investors are more willing to invest money in giant enterprises, such as Alibaba's investment in Zhiji Automobile.

For the future of the enterprise, Zhang Chi gave his views from the perspective of investors: to communicate with the giants more, try to introduce more partners or create a good value for themselves.

Today, Yundu Automobile's capital chain is broken, and it is quietly waiting for the arrival of new shareholders. The end of the enterprise will fall into the dust of history like the former Bo County, Byton, and Sailin Automobile, or whether it will restart after being acquired like Xinte and Yujie Electric, etc., it still needs time to give an answer. But the time when Lin Mi can continue to accompany his "children" has entered the countdown.

Source | Beijing News

Review | sagacious

Final Review | Song Guanghui