The parent company's pre-reorganization was accepted by the court: the industry has broad prospects, can HiPhi Auto be reborn?
2024-08-10
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After half a year of suspension of work and production, HiPhi Auto's parent company Human Horizons has ushered in a new turnaround.
On August 9, according to the National Enterprise Bankruptcy and Reorganization Case Information Network, the People's Court of Yancheng Economic and Technological Development Zone made a decision on August 8, deciding to accept the pre-reorganization application of Human Horizons (Jiangsu) Technology Co., Ltd.
The decision shows that on July 1, 2024, the applicant Human Horizons applied to the People's Court of Yancheng Economic and Technological Development Zone for reorganization of the company, and at the same time applied for pre-reorganization on the grounds that its assets could not repay all debts due, but had reorganization value and possibility.
The court filed the case on August 8, 2024, and formed a collegial panel to review the case in accordance with the law. The court found that as of April 30, 2024, Human Horizons' known unpaid debts exceeded the company's total assets, and its assets were insufficient to repay all debts, which had already met the grounds for bankruptcy. In order to solve the company's current predicament, the applicant submitted a reorganization feasibility analysis report. The court notified some known creditors of the debtor's application for bankruptcy pre-reorganization, and sought the opinions of the local competent authorities and major creditors.
The court held that Human Horizons' business involves the research and development and production of new energy vehicles, autonomous driving, cloud computing, etc. The new energy vehicle industry in which it is located has broad prospects. Pre-reorganization will help improve the efficiency of corporate reorganization, reduce the cost of corporate reorganization, and give full play to the function of the reorganization system in saving troubled companies and better protect the legitimate rights and interests of creditors. The debtor has pre-reorganization value and meets the pre-reorganization conditions.
In addition, the decision also mentioned that the pre-reorganization period is six months from the date of the decision. If there is a legitimate reason, it can be extended for three months upon application by the pre-reorganization administrator.
In other words, it will take at most nine months to find out whether HiPhi Auto's pre-reorganization will be successful.
Prior to this, HiPhi had been saving itself for half a year.
Public information shows that HiPhi is a high-end pure electric vehicle brand under Human Horizons, and the HiPhi brand was officially released to the public in 2019. Its founder Ding Lei was formerly the vice president of SAIC Group and the co-founder of LeTV.
According to the official website, HiPhi Auto has launched four models, namely HiPhi X, HiPhi Z and HiPhi Y, with prices ranging from 339,000 yuan to 800,000 yuan.
HiPhi Auto has not released sales data regularly since it started delivering in 2021. The official website shows that as of March 11, 2022, HiPhi has delivered a total of 5,142 vehicles; in November 2023, HiPhi announced that it sold 1,606 units of the new model HiPhi Y in October.
On February 18 this year, HiPhi Auto announced the suspension of work and production.
On the evening of February 22, Ding Lei appeared at Hi-Tech Auto's Shanghai headquarters and had a ten-minute conversation with some employees and car owners. At that time, he judged that the company still had three months of rescue period.
On May 17, five days before the end of the "rescue period", media reported that Human Horizons issued an internal announcement regarding the working group during the company's restructuring, deciding to establish a restructuring working group and a joint operations working group.
Also in May, when the news of the restructuring was announced, Human Horizons signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with the automotive platform iAuto.
According to the agreement, iAuto plans to invest USD 1 billion in Human Horizons. The scope of cooperation between the two parties includes but is not limited to production coordination to complete sales orders, equity mergers and acquisitions, technical cooperation, brand and international sales docking, and related integration of supply chain and production manufacturing. iAuto will fully support HiPhi Auto's plan to resume business operations and vehicle production.
iAuto's actual controller is none other than Yang Rong, the chairman of the Hybrid Group (01188.HK) and the company's largest single shareholder. Yang Rong is a prominent figure in China's auto industry. He has single-handedly promoted the listing of Brilliance Auto and built Jinbei Auto into a leading company in the domestic light passenger vehicle market. In 2002, due to disagreements with the local government, Yang Rong left Brilliance and went to the United States. Subsequently, Yang Rong, who has always had a dream of building cars, founded the Hybrid Group to engage in the electric vehicle business.
Yang Rong mentioned in a subsequent media interview that current investors will basically no longer invest in electric vehicles, and that they must have "black technology" to raise funds. What investors want to invest in is to graft the "black technology" mastered by iAuto on HiPhi, so that iAuto does not have to start from scratch and can avoid the R&D process.
As for what the "black technology" is, the interview did not reveal it. However, according to information released by iAuto, the company has rich technical reserves and international patents in the field of clean energy vehicle powertrain and motor system, including "low-temperature controlled fusion modules in micro-rotating generators to replace gasoline and other fuels" and "super drive system (performance is more than 5 times higher than traditional drive systems)".
The Paper reporter Wu Yuli and intern Tao Lemeng
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