Baoneng Is Too Busy To See The Fate Of His Life: How To Tell The Story Of Yao Zhenhua'S Car Making?

"Affected by arrears in wages, layoffs and social security payments, people have left almost every day in recent months. Now, the number of employees in service is less than 30% before, and they are almost gone. I also left in August." At the end of August, Lu Chen (not his real name), who had worked in Guanzhi automobile for more than two years, finally chose to leave. The enterprise that once made him determined to make a career is now sliding into the abyss.

"Since February last year, the social security payment of some employees has been cut off, and the wages of some employees have also been delayed for a period of time. After making up the social security payment in May this year, everyone thought that the company was getting better, and as a result, the follow-up wages could not be paid out. " Lu Chen said that at present, his salary list shows the salary in May this year, but the salary in June and July has not been listed below“ Some employees asked in the internal group, but no one responded. "

From high spirited to deplorable, but in a short period of time.

In November 2020, Yao Zhenhua, chairman of Baoneng group, has no less ambition. "In the next 10 to 15 years, Baoneng group will strive to become a world-class heavyweight automobile enterprise group integrating automobile manufacturers, mobile travel and integrated service providers."

Since the beginning of this year, Guanzhi automobile, which used to target the middle and high-end market of its own brand, has been exposed to be in arrears with employees' salaries, cut off social security payments, mass layoffs, dealers' rights protection, and factory shutdown. The fate of once Chery's "proud son" is going to be unknown.

The fate of Guan Zhi

Guanzhi automobile was founded in 2007. As a sample of high-end brand of its own, it is jointly funded by Chery Automobile and quantum company. It owns Guanzhi 3, Guanzhi 5 and other models. At that time, China's automobile market was in the first round of high-end trial of independent brands. At the beginning of its establishment, Guanzhi was committed to building domestic high-end brand models, which was one of Chery's weapons to attack the high-end market. However, at that time, the market's acceptance of high-end autonomy was low. The relative mistakes of Guanzhi's initial pricing strategy, the swing in the brand, and the unsystematic distribution of dealers made Guan Zhi's obscure company fail many times.

In 2017, Guanzhi automobile, which suffered losses and debts of 9.21 billion yuan in successive years, finally came to the "knight in white" - the rich Baoneng group, which purchased 51% of the equity of Guanzhi automobile at a price of 6.63 billion yuan. In the outside world, Baoneng will stop bleeding and bring new development mode.

"Starting from 2018, Baoneng group will invest RMB 10 billion every year for 5 consecutive years for the research and development of new vehicles of Guanzhi, and it is expected to launch 26 new models by 2022." At the 2018 Guanzhi auto dealer conference, Yao Zhenhua was in high spirits.

Baoneng said that it has continuously invested more than 20 billion yuan for Guanzhi, and most of the funds have flowed into the R & D field, and the scale of Guanzhi Automobile Research Institute is also expanding. However, in fact, it is not clear where the 20 billion yuan has been spent. In terms of products, except for Guanzhi 7 launched in September last year, Guanzhi has not launched any new products since it was acquired by Baoneng.

At the same time, Baoneng's entry has not made Guanzhi automobile into a brilliant situation, but has been plagued by negative news: slow product update, declining sales, frequent replacement of senior management team, shutdown and layoff, collective rights protection of dealers, self production and self-sale, etc. In 2018, the sales volume of Guanzhi skyrocketed by 320%, and the cumulative sales volume reached 63179 vehicles. Originally, it was thought that the Guangzhi time was about to break out, but it was later revealed that this was a farce of "left hand to right hand", and most of the sales of Guanzhi were digested by Lianhe cloud, a car rental company owned by Baoneng.

After that, Guanzhi automobile fell rapidly, and the sales volume was increasingly bleak. In 2019, the annual sales of Guanzhi automobile are 22700, 13100 in 2020, and 4380 in the first half of this year, with an average of less than 800 vehicles per month. In July 2021, the production of Guanzhi vehicles was 0. From January to July 2021, the cumulative output of Guanzhi automobile is 1927. Among them, the output of Guanzhi 3 is 0, that of Guanzhi 5 is 15, and that of Guanzhi 7 is 1912.

An employee of Guanzhi Automobile Co., Ltd. said that the Changshu factory of Guanzhi automobile had stopped production. In the first half of this year, the factory had no production scheduling plan. The supplier procurement and manufacturing equipment were in a state of suspension. A large number of employees left, and some employees were transferred to Chery Automobile to assist in production.

"The shutdown of Guanzhi in July is actually the result of overcapacity in China's automobile industry. With the development of new energy vehicles and intelligent vehicles, Guanzhi is still eating the old capital of fuel vehicles without innovation, and has fallen behind in the fierce market competition. The Guanzhi 7 released last year is only a small change." On September 6, Zhang Xiang, an automobile industry analyst, said in an interview with the 21st century economic report, "in addition, the main consumers are the post-80s and post-90s. Under the impact of new automobile manufacturing forces such as Weilai and Tesla, the popularity and competitiveness of Guanzhi brand are getting lower and lower, and gradually become marginal brands like Zhongtai and Haima."

Baoneng is too busy for himself

Four years later, Baoneng group, once a high-profile acquisition leader, is now at a loss. On June 15, this year, when Baoneng group received the news of 12 billion yuan of financing, the comment areas of major platforms became large-scale debt collection sites for a time. Apart from Baoneng automobile and Guanzhi automobile, according to an employee who left Baoneng, many Baoneng companies, such as logistics, fresh food, Netcom and mobile phone communication, were in arrears.

The continuous fermentation of Baoneng group's capital problem further affects the business progress of Baoneng automobile and Guanzhi automobile. Baoneng automobile said in June that in August this year, Guanzhi automobile will launch the first product with core technology of irev of Baoneng new energy automobile group, Guanzhi Rev3, and in September, it will launch the first irev SUV product, Guanzhi rev5. However, a week after September, Guanzhi Rev3 still has no new news.

An internal employee of Baoneng automobile, who has already left the company, told the 21st century economic report: "everything was ready before, but we just needed money to start and go offline. Guanzhi is also short of money, otherwise the new model will be offline. "

In addition, the Xi'an plant, which was put into operation at the end of 2020 and held the first vehicle off-line ceremony, was not officially put into production. During a media visit, it was found that "only about 15 vehicles have been commissioned and produced," and "leaders come and have a seat.". The Baoneng automobile personage told the 21st century economic report that Xi'an factory originally planned to produce Guanzhi 3 and Guanzhi 5, and Baoneng's first high-end new energy brand Bao will also be produced here, but "lack of money, unable to start work".

Domestic troubles and foreign troubles are like chicken feathers. According to the information from China executive information disclosure network, Guanzhi automobile has been executed five times since this year, with a total execution target of nearly 11 million yuan. In addition, since the beginning of this year, there have been as many as 47 court announcements involving contract disputes. Among them, Guanzhi automobile was listed as the defendant in 40 of them. Most of the plaintiffs were service providers and suppliers of Guanzhi automobile, such as Wuhu WanLiYang transmission Co., Ltd.

In addition, according to the national enterprise credit information publicity system, in October and November last year, Guanzhi automobile carried out three chattel mortgage, including 1800 new inventory Guanzhi vehicles, supplier molds and a large number of auto parts, as well as new robot equipment in welding workshop in 2019.

It is reported that Baoneng is planning to introduce new investors to Guanzhi automobile, including a state owned assets supervision and Administration Commission of Jiangsu Province and GAC group. Baoneng will sell some shares of Guanzhi automobile in exchange for capital, but relevant negotiations are still in progress. Baoneng automobile related person in charge said, "contact GAC group and other rumors are not true."

"Baoneng still uses the concept of real estate to build cars. Instead of forming the advantages of localized R & D system, Baoneng has rapidly expanded its production capacity, which has brought many problems‘ "Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy On September 6, Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the all China Riding Association, said in an interview with a reporter from the 21st century economic report.

As a "layman" who started his career in real estate and finance, he was a good dancer in the capital market and a "barbarian" in the capital market. Up to now, doubts about Baoneng's motives for cross-border car building are rampant. Since October 2017, Baoneng has successively acquired more than 4 million square meters of land in Guangzhou, Xi'an, Kunming, Hangzhou and Guiyang.

"There are many conflicts between the real estate car making mode and the development law of the automobile industry. If we do not completely change the behavior mode and car making concept, it will be difficult to succeed." Some people in the industry said that Baoneng's pace was too big and the follow-up funds could not keep up with it. Last year's name call by the national development and Reform Commission also sounded the alarm for Baoneng and Evergrande.

In addition, Baoneng's high-end brand Bao appeared not long ago, positioning luxury intelligent new energy vehicles, and launching the brand theme collection activity of "global search for Bao", which also increased uncertainty for the ill fated view. It is understood that Bao brand will launch at least 16 new models in the next five years, including SUV, sedan, MPV, sports car and other models, gradually covering the segment market of high-end electric vehicles. However, some people familiar with the matter said that due to the failure to pay suppliers since the end of last year, the project of the first model (internal code GX16) has been stagnated for a long time.

"The story of Guanzhi brand is not good to continue to tell. First, its popularity is too low, and there is a lack of online Red leaders and firm user groups; Second, the core technology, such as automatic driving, intelligent network connection and other deficiencies. At present, Guanzhi has only some backward production capacity. It seems that it is difficult to escape the fate of bankruptcy or elimination. In order to participate in the competition, we must build a new generation platform for new energy and intelligent network connection. " Zhang Xiang finally said.