Even the Li Ka-shing family is pitted! Burned out 41 billion, the founder of WM Motor fled overseas?
◎Author | South China Soros
Jia Yueting, who has been in the United States for 6 years, did not wait for his own turning over, but waited for another car-making predator - Shen Hui.
On October 16, Jia Yueting released an "Open Letter from Jia Yueting to All Shareholders and Investors", which mentioned that the current market value of Faraday Future (hereinafter referred to as "FF") has fallen to less than 1% of the total cash investment of more than US$3 billion.
On July 4, 2017, LeEco founder Jia Yueting boarded a plane to the United States, saying that he was only on a short-term business trip and would return to China next week.
At that time, a group of media believed that Jia Yueting went to the United States to find a way to make a living for LeEco.
Six years later, Shen Hui, the founder of WM Motor, posted a Weibo message before boarding the plane, with the content of "Good things take a long time, wait for flowers to bloom." ”
People thought that this meant that WM would usher in a turnaround, but he didn't expect that he took Jia Yueting's script, under the pretext of participating in the Munich Motor Show, and then transferred directly to New York, USA, took the money and fled overseas, with no return date.
Some media broke the news that Shen Hui will no longer appear in public with the company after 2023, and his family has also moved to the United States before. People went to the empty building, leaving only nearly 40 billion yuan of investment and debt, as well as countless WM employees who were owed wages.
Unlike "mud legs" Jia Yueting, Shen Hui has a double master's degree from UCLA and the University of Minnesota, graduated with a full scholarship, and led Geely's merger and acquisition of Volvo after work, so Shen Hui is also quite bright among the heads of new energy vehicles.
But the development paths of WM and LeEco are strikingly similar.
From the beginning of the establishment of WM, Boss Shen may not have thought of keeping a low profile.
WM Motor, taken from the German Weltmeister, meaning world champion, compared to Wei Xiaoli of the same period, Shen Hui is far ahead of the name.
Just like in the era of rampant piracy, Jia Yueting took the lead in choosing the "genuine + paid" procurement route, Shen Hui did not take the road of OEM, but threw 12 billion self-built factories, and the target was also Tesla.
In the early days of the business, neither of them chose to do the easy thing, but believed in the right path of long-termism.
It's just that aggressive expansion often inadvertently inflates bubbles. LeEco's whitewashed high growth has been questioned by the market, and Bao Fan, CEO of China Renaissance Capital, once proposed that a video website ranked 17 has the industry's first financial indicators, which is like "playing tricks".
WM, which ranks first among the new forces in car manufacturing in terms of financing scale, has also been questioned about falling behind. Since its establishment, WM has raised more than 41 billion yuan, far exceeding Wei Xiaoli's pre-IPO financing of 15 billion, 18.8 billion and 12 billion.
But sales are a bit shabby. As early as 2020, Wei Xiaoli's sales were 43,300 units, 27,000 units and 32,600 units, respectively, while WM only had 22,500 units, which has lagged significantly behind.
In the same year, WM signed a listing guidance agreement with CITIC Securities, and then also transferred to the science and technology innovation board, Hong Kong Stock Exchange and other markets, but finally failed. However, the new forces have been listed on the US stock market one after another, and their stock prices have skyrocketed in turn.
In this regard, Boss Shen insisted that he had not fallen behind, but "the quiet period was a little long."
At the end of 2022, Shen Hui's internal letter from employees to cut their salaries revealed a corner of WM Motor's struggling survival. Whether it was quoting the bridge of "living like an animal" in the TV series or making a promise that "he would not lie down and would not fall", Shen Hui was always in the center of public opinion until he sent out that Weibo, boarded a flight to Munich, and went to the same destination as Jia Yueting.
WM Motor, which was once known as the "Four Little Dragons of New Forces" together with Wei Xiaoli, also formally applied to the Shanghai No. 3 Intermediate People's Court for bankruptcy reorganization five years after its establishment. According to enterprise investigation data, the equity of WM Motor Technology Group Co., Ltd. and many companies held by it has been frozen, with a cumulative amount of more than 10 billion yuan.
More seriously, WM will not be able to meet the needs of after-sales business. Many models on sale, or still in stock, have lacked maintenance parts, and many WM 4S stores have also changed to other brands, and there is no clear after-sales solution.
Why did WM, which is not short of money, end up in such a situation?
At the end of the day, it's the lack of competitiveness of the product. In terms of the methodology of car building, Shen Hui and Xu Jiayin should be regarded as confidants. WM and Hengchi do not do self-research, but believe in the doctrine of taking the doctrine and take the road of building cars by eating a hundred meals.
The intelligent assisted driving system is Baidu Apollo's, the car machine intelligent voice bought by iFLYTEK, and the technical support of the car interconnection said that it was provided by Xiaomi... Other software and hardware are also purchased.
But in the matter of how to remove individuals from trouble, Boss Xu is much more shrewd than him.
On August 16, Evergrande disclosed its 2022 ESG report showing that as of December 31 last year, the chairman of the board of directors, Xu Jiayin, was paid 126,000 yuan, compared with 252,000 yuan in 2021. The image of Professor Xu Jiayin not greedy for money jumped on the paper.
In a prospectus from WM, it is written that Shen Hui's annual salary in 2021 is as high as 1.26 billion yuan, which is 630 times that of He Xiaopeng and 740 times that of Li Xiang.
However, looking at the salary structure, most of the 1.26 billion yuan is the value of the equity held, and now that WM is bankrupt, the possibility of cashing out this part of the equity is slim. But Shen Hui's salary is actually 2.01 million yuan, which is also higher than that of the new forces.
Compared with the 1 yuan annual salary of Ma Yun, Liu Qiangdong and other bigwigs, Boss Shen is completely public, and he is a little too straightforward.
Perhaps he is full of confidence in his ability level and thinks that he fully deserves such a salary, coupled with the fact that WM has raised 41 billion yuan, and the scale is a large number of new forces in car manufacturing, Boss Shen is a little better to himself, it seems to be a matter of course.
However, in the context of 2019 to 2021, WM Motor has lost money for many years, and in 2021 it will lose 8.2 billion yuan, everyone naturally has a question: Where does Boss Shen's money come from?
This can be seen in an arbitration case. In early April this year, Peng Moumou, the applicant for enforcement, applied for enforcement of the arbitration case of WM Motor Technology Group Co., Ltd. due to wage arrears.
The final judgment of the case was that WM Motor Technology Group Co., Ltd. paid the applicant Peng Moumou's salary difference of RMB 11,798.5 in October and November 2022, and RMB 2,266.9 in December 2022, a total of RMB 14,065.4, and Shen Hui was also restricted from consumption.
Boss Shen, who has an annual salary of 1.26 billion yuan and cannot pay 14,000 yuan, is too hateful.
Peng Moumou is not a case, after the 41 billion burned out, WM's automotive engineers and software engineers, these decent people with high education and high salaries in the eyes of the public, can only pull banners and embark on the road of asking for salaries.
But Boss Shen still has merit, that is, in the matter of pit people, whether it is the general public or the son of the richest man, he treats them equally.
New energy vehicles burn money, as we all know. But compared with the new forces in car manufacturing, Boss Shen, who has been deeply engaged in the automotive field for many years, still has a big enough face.
WM Motor basically maintains the frequency of annual financing, including Baidu, PCCW, Shun Tak Group and other international capital, Shanghai State-owned Investment Platform, Hefei State-owned Assets Platform and other industrial funds, as well as SAIC, Unigroup and other industrial companies, all have high hopes for WM.
Among them, PCCW belongs to Li Ka-shing's son Li Zekai, and behind Shun Tak Group, stands Macau gambling king Stanley Ho and Ho Chaoqiong, with a total injection of 500 million US dollars.
As a model of Hong Kong's rich second generation, Li Zekai's investment has rarely failed so far, but at least two men have left a mark in his heart, one is Ma Huateng and the other is Shen Hui.
In 2000, Li Zekai bought a 20% stake in Tencent, but he was not optimistic about Tencent's business model and always wanted to sell Tencent.
In 2001, Li Zekai sold this 20% stake to South Africa's MIH Group for $12.6 million, making a profit of $11.5 million.
It seems to be bloody, but he also lost the rare opportunity to surpass his father. If he chooses to hold these 20% shares, based on Tencent's market value of 2,879.258 billion yuan, he will sit on 575.85 billion yuan, and his total personal assets will exceed Li Ka-shing, not to mention, and he is expected to become the richest man in the world.
No wonder Li Zekai often said that selling Tencent is one of the most regrettable decisions he has ever made in his life, and finding an investment target similar to Tencent with high growth has therefore become Li Zekai's heart disease.
But Tencent still earns it, and this single of WM is a rare defeat for Li Zekai.
As for why WM was chosen, Li Zekai said in an interview with the media that it is mainly because the new energy industry is at the cusp of the wind and its development is hot; Shen Hui has been deeply engaged in the automotive industry for many years and has rich experience; WM Motor has high growth potential.
Perhaps, at a certain time, Li Zekai thought that the WM he fancy was another Tencent.
However, things backfired, two years after he injected capital, WM Motor's supporting software "WM.ai" and "Xiaowei Travel" Bluetooth keys and remote car control functions could not be used, showing network abnormalities, suspected that the background has been stopped.
What's more serious is that the vehicle system once fell into a crash, unable to start normally, not to mention, even "music can not be listened to".
Some black humor is that the navigation of the basically paralyzed WM motor can still be used.
The owners who did not drive the car out of the parking space for half a day sighed that WM Motor is worthy of the name of "real estate".
Netizens ridiculed that the Li family, who got rich on real estate, came around in circles and encountered "real estate".
According to rumors, Shen Hui and Li Zekai are both Canadian, and I don't know if Shen Hui swore when he negotiated capital injection with Li Zekai: "Canadians do not lie to Canadians."
When the pride of the past is gone, those who have been in the spotlight for many years have begun to leave the scene in different ways.
Evergrande Xu Jiayin once proudly shouted out the motto of "buy, buy, buy, combine, circle, big, good and good".
Then Evergrande thundered, Xu Jiayin was arrested, and Hengchi Auto was also confirmed to be just an excuse to take money.
Once determined to become the industry's top 3 WM, Shen Hui ran away to the United States, and now leaves a mess.
In addition to new energy vehicles, other industries seem to be no exception.
Country Garden's Yang Guoqiang sold two of his private jets to pay off debts, one of which was brand new;
When the film and television industry was on the cusp of self-inspection, Zhao Benshan came forward to make up for the tax amount for the apprentices who "lacked sufficient consciousness";
Mobike, which ceased operations in 2020, has also recently restarted returning deposits, allowing migrant workers to "really return a windfall."
In addition, Internet bigwigs such as Ma Yun, Liu Qiangdong, Ma Huateng, Wang Xing, and Zhang Yiming are retreating or fading out of the Internet vision.
Low-key, low-key, and then low-key, it has become the self-cultivation of the big guys. The once fierce 15-character proverb has turned into a embarrassment of selling, running, returning, and retreating.
Stricter regulation is one of the reasons, in the context of the tightening of the environment, blind expansion is no longer wise, shrinking the territory, clamping the tail is the way to survive.
This is true of the big guys, and even more so for ordinary people.
In the past two years, we have heard fewer and fewer stories of ordinary people starting a business and creating wealth, and entrepreneurship seems to have become the exclusive preserve of elites.
The IT Orange article pointed out that in 2022, in addition to advanced manufacturing, medical and health care, and enterprise service industries, there are still few industries that can still be favored by VCs, and these industries are often the exclusive domain of experts, technical backbones, executives with technical backgrounds, college professors and disciples.
In contrast, in order to survive, the titles of ordinary people are much more grounded - public dogs, Internet celebrities, content practitioners, self-employed, super individuals, business coaches, anchors, small bosses.......