Danger!, Goodway

Weima, who was once on par with Wei Xiaoli, has now reached the edge of the cliff.

On September 8th, Apollo Smart Travel Group Co., Ltd. announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that all relevant parties have agreed to terminate the acquisition agreement of WM, so the acquisition and allocation matters will not proceed. The announcement mentions that the reasons for terminating the acquisition include global market turbulence, continued uncertainty in the financial market atmosphere, and short-term economic recovery.

APOLLO Travel Announcement

This means that the future of Weima Motors, which was previously positioned by Shen Hui as "going to survive like a livestock," is even more uncertain. An automotive industry analyst pointed out to reporters that the announcement of APOLLO Travel marks the complete loss of the opportunity for Weimar Motors to go public on the Hong Kong stock market, which is deeply in crisis.

The reporter also noticed that Shen Hui, the founder and chairman of WM Motor, who had not appeared for a long time, was rumored to have been "overseas", and WM's huge assets were also frozen.

Weima Automobile Chairman Shen Hui's WeChat Moments have been publicly updated until November 17, 2022

The failure of Hong Kong stock backdoor listing after a wave of twists and turns

On January 12, 2023, APOLLO Travel announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that its wholly-owned subsidiary has entered into an acquisition agreement with WM Motor Global Investment Limited, intending to acquire all issued share capital of its wholly-owned subsidiary WM Motor Global Investment Limited for $2.023 billion. At that time, the market generally believed that Weima, which urgently needed blood transfusions, had clarified its financing path for shell listing.

APOLLO Travel, also known as Apollo Smart Travel Group Co., Ltd., formerly known as Power Century Limited, was established in 2002 with global headquarters in Hong Kong, China. As a Hong Kong listed company, the Chinese name of the company was changed to Apollo Smart Travel Group Co., Ltd. on August 26, 2022. Starting from September 29, the listed company's abbreviation was changed to APOLLO Travel. Currently, it mainly engages in travel business, vehicle platform authorization, and engineering service outsourcing. Previously, Li Shiji acquired 86.06% of the shares of Apollo Automobile, a top European high-performance supercar developer, in March 2020, and completed the acquisition of Ideenion Automobile AG, a German automotive engineering service outsourcing provider, in 2021.

According to APOLLO Travel's 2021 annual report, WM Motor controlled 28.51% of the equity of Li Century through stock exchanges and other operations in the fourth quarter of 2021, becoming the largest shareholder of APOLLO Travel. Shen Hui, founder and chairman of WM Motor, serves as co chairman of the board and non-executive director at APOLLO Travel. On the other hand, on June 1, 2022, WMA submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but on December 1, WMA's prospectus was in an invalid state and had not been updated. According to the regulations of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, if a company fails to pass the hearing within 6 months, the prospectus will become invalid.

On January 12th, after APOLLO Chuxing announced the financing news of Weima's shell listing, Weima Automobile CEO Shen Hui posted a segment of the movie "Furong Town" on Weibo, with the line "Live, live like a livestock". Previously, Shen Hui had repeatedly suggested that Weima Automobile should "live like a livestock".

Since then, Weima Motors and Shen Hui have also become active. In February, Shen Hui posted on Weibo that "Weima has indeed encountered some difficulties in the past year due to the objective impact of the epidemic and market environment. We are adjusting through a series of cost reduction and efficiency improvement measures to fully ensure the resumption of work and production, and to ensure the experience of end users." In March, Weima Automobile's official Weibo account announced that in the near future, more than 100 dealerships and stores across the country will gradually resume normal services to solve various car purchase and use problems for users.

However, in June, there were reports that Shen Hui was listed as a dishonest debtor by the People's Court of Qingpu District, Shanghai, and was restricted from high consumption. Subsequently, the official Weibo account of Weima Motors announced that Shen Hui's height restriction order had been lifted. At the same time, it was stated that under the leadership of Shen Hui, Weima Automobile is fully committed to providing user services, paying off debts in an orderly manner in accordance with the law, and actively promoting the plan for new energy vehicles to go abroad. It is expected to resume work and production in the near future and resume normal operations.

According to the Tianyancha app, on August 11th, Weima Automobile added a new information freeze of 6 billion yuan in equity. The company whose equity was executed is Hubei Xinghui New Energy Intelligent Automobile Co., Ltd., and the executing court is the Intermediate People's Court of Huanggang City, Hubei Province.

On August 22nd, public information once again revealed that Hubei Xinghui New Energy Intelligent Vehicle Co., Ltd. has added bankruptcy reorganization information with case number E 11 Po Shen 12. The applicant is Shanghai Xinyanlong Automotive Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd., which is also handled by the Intermediate People's Court of Huanggang City, Hubei Province.

Weima Automobile's new energy vehicle production line

On August 17th, a new company named "Fafa Automobile" with a registered capital of 100 million US dollars and fully owned by FF HongKong Holding Limited was established in Huanggang, Hubei. In its business scope, this newly established company includes the production of road motor vehicles, sales of new energy vehicles, and research and development of automotive components. The founder of FF is Jia Yueting. Industry experts have told reporters that after the dream of going public was shattered, the prospects for Shen Hui and his Weima Motors have become very pessimistic, and Weima's production base and other assets in Huanggang, Hubei may be revitalized by FF.

Falling from the second largest new force in China in a straight line

The fall of Weima surprised many people.

Looking back to 2018, as the sales of new energy vehicles in China reached a historic moment of over a million units, the first tier of new Chinese car making forces that entered the public's view included NIO, Xiaopeng, Ideal, and Weima. Among them, Weima Automobile achieved an annual sales volume of 16876 new energy vehicles in 2019, ranking second on the sales ranking of new car making forces at that time.

In addition, starting from Series A financing, Weima Automobile has raised a total of over 35 billion yuan, exceeding the pre IPO financing of NIO, Xiaopeng, and Ideal.

In September 2020, Weima Automobile announced the completion of a 10 billion yuan D-round financing, jointly led by Shanghai State owned Assets Investment Platform and SAIC Group. Baidu and Haina Asia Venture Capital Fund continued to participate in this round of financing, and state-owned industry investors such as Hubei Yangtze River Industry Fund, Suzhou Kunshan Industry Fund, Hunan Hengyang State owned Investment Platform, Anhui Hefei Industry Fund, State owned Investment Chuangyi Industry Fund, and Guangzhou Financial Holding Group joined in the investment. In October 2021, WM Motor completed another round of D+financing of over 300 million US dollars, led by Xinde Group and PCCW, with Guangfa Xinde participating.

Three years have passed, and the Chinese new energy vehicle market continues to show growth in 2022. However, looking at the sales rankings of new forces, WM has disappeared from the top ten rankings, and the company has not participated in the centralized release of mainstream new energy vehicle company sales data in January each month.

The funding issue of Weima Motors has also been fermenting since October 2022. An internal letter released by Shen Hui, which has been circulating in the industry, shows that in 2022, Weima Motors will not only be affected by the epidemic in multiple regions, but also face huge challenges in the supply chain, such as a sharp increase in raw material costs and delayed supply, seriously affecting its production and operation.

WM Motor W5 model

In response to this crisis, WM Motor has taken a series of cost reduction measures since October, including proactive salary cuts for managers at M4 and above, and the payment of 50% of their basic salary; Other employees receive 70% of their basic salary; Adjust the company's pay day; No additional bonuses, retention bonuses, or year-end bonuses will be issued this year, and car purchase subsidies will be suspended.

"The model of relying on 'losses' to build sales barriers is no longer competitive. The new energy vehicle industry urgently needs to return to its commercial essence, achieve healthy financial indicators and sustainable development." Shen Hui said in late November 2022, "Now looking at the sales list of new forces is like looking at the' loss list ', the more they sell, the more they lose.". Looking back at the industry history, Tesla, the current benchmark for electric vehicles, has also experienced 16 years to turn losses into profits. "Animals still have a hibernation instinct, so for enterprises, whether it's lowering salaries or regulating sales, the purpose is to achieve strategic goals such as reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and improving profit structure, in order to steadily overcome the industry's winter and achieve sustainable development in the future." Shen Hui said.

As a well-known professional manager in the Chinese automotive industry, Shen Hui has had impressive work experience before. Born in Shanghai, he studied at South China University of Technology for his undergraduate degree, and later went to the United States to obtain a Master's degree in Structural Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. After graduation, he served as the President of BorgWarner Group in China, the founder and chairman of wholly-owned and joint ventures, and the CEO of Fiat Power Technology in China. Shen Hui later joined Geely and served as a director and vice president of Geely Holding Group. He led the team to complete the largest overseas acquisition in the history of China's automotive industry, Geely's acquisition of Volvo, and was responsible for restructuring Volvo's global governance structure.

"That scammer company has nothing to do with me anymore." On September 9th, a former head of marketing business at WM Auto told a reporter from the Shanghai Stock Exchange that he had been resigning from WM Auto for some time.