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On June 14, two affiliated companies of Baiteng Automobile were newly filed for bankruptcy liquidation by the court.

"Automobile Industry Concern" learned from Tianyan inspection that Nanjing Zhixing New Energy Automobile Technology Development Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as "Zhixing New Energy Vehicle Company") added a new piece of "bankruptcy reorganization" information, the case number is (2023) Su 0113 break No.48, the case type is "bankruptcy case," the applicant is Nanjing Kunou Automobile Service Co., Ltd., Shanghai Huaxun Network System Co., Ltd., and the handling court is Nanjing City Qixia District People's Court.

On the same day, Nanjing Zhixing Electric Vehicle Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as "Zhixing Electric Vehicle") also added a new "bankruptcy reorganization" information, the case No. is (2023) Su 0113 No.47, the case type is "bankruptcy case," the applicant is Nanjing City Qixia District Electric Equipment Installation Engineering Co., Ltd., Saint-Gobain Automobile Glass (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Shanghai Huaxun Network System Co., Ltd., the handling court is also Nanjing City Qixia District People's Court.

"Civil Decision of Jiangsu Province Nanjing City Qixia District People's Court" shows that in the bankruptcy liquidation case of Zhixing New Energy Vehicle Company, the applicant Nanjing Kunou Automobile Service Co., Ltd. said that the company owed more than 770,000 yuan of charter fees, while another applicant Shanghai Huaxun Network System Co., Ltd. said it was owed more than 3.69 million yuan. In the bankruptcy liquidation case of Zhixing New Energy Vehicle Company, all three applicants also indicated that they were owed money by the company. According to the above-mentioned applicants, the two affiliated companies of Baiteng Automobile, as debtors, are unable to pay off due debts and obviously lack solvency, and they involve a large number of executed cases and cease operation. In order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the applicant, he applied for bankruptcy liquidation and repayment according to law.

In response to the above-mentioned applicant's point of view, the two affiliated companies of Baiteng Automobile argue that Baiteng Automobile still has the hope of "saving", and that it has met the conditions for mass production, is undergoing asset restructuring, and the market value is much greater than the book value.

However, the court held that Zhixing New Energy Vehicle Company and Zhixing Electric Vehicle Company were involved in many enforcement cases. Although they had huge property under their names, there were defects in rights and integrity of assets, which led to the failure of the court to enforce them in place. For many execution cases, only the execution procedure can be terminated, resulting in the rights of the applicant can not be maintained. The company has been out of business for several years, and several attempts at self-restructuring have failed. In this case, many applicants cannot be paid off after compulsory execution of the case, so it shall be deemed that Zhixing New Energy Vehicle Company and Zhixing Electric Vehicle Company have bankruptcy reasons, and their application to the People's Court for bankruptcy and debt repayment of the respondent conforms to the provisions of the law and shall be accepted according to law.

At present, the People's Court of Qixia District of Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province has ruled to accept the bankruptcy liquidation case of Nanjing Zhixing New Energy Vehicle Technology Development Co., Ltd. and Nanjing Zhixing Electric Vehicle Co., Ltd.

According to Tianyan information, Nanjing Zhixing New Energy Automobile Technology Development Co., Ltd. was established in June 2017 with a registered capital of 5.64571 billion yuan. The company is jointly owned by Zhixing New Energy Automobile Investment Management (Nanjing) Co., Ltd. and Nanjing Qining Feng New Energy Automobile Industry Investment Fund Partnership (limited partnership), with shareholding ratios of 73.33% and 26.67% respectively. Baiteng Automobile is the brand of new energy automobile owned by the company.

Nanjing Zhixing Electric Vehicle Co., Ltd. was established in August 2017 with a registered capital of 5.9598 billion yuan. It is an enterprise mainly engaged in automobile manufacturing. The company is jointly owned by Nanjing Zhixing New Energy Automobile Technology Development Co., Ltd. and Nanjing Xingzhi Science and Technology Industry Development Co., Ltd.

In fact, this is not the first time Byton has been filed for bankruptcy liquidation. As early as October 2021, Nanjing Zhixing New Energy Automobile Technology Development Co., Ltd. has appeared "bankruptcy appeal case" information. The applicant is Shanghai Huaxun Network System Co., Ltd., and the handling court is Nanjing City Intermediate People's Court of Jiangsu Province.

The People's Court of Qixia District of Nanjing City, which accepted the two cases, said that since 2020, more than 80 execution cases involving Zhixing New Energy Company have been filed and accepted, involving about 150 million yuan; while Zhixing Electric Vehicle Company involves more than 100 cases involving about 3.05 billion yuan. The court said that during 2021, creditors had applied for bankruptcy and repayment of debts of the two companies, and rejected the creditors 'applications in view of the opportunity given to them for self-rescue. After that, the two companies experienced several self-restructuring, but failed to get out of trouble, many creditors 'rights and interests still can not be safeguarded. Although the two companies argued that there was hope to save the car, the court made a decision to support the case under various factors.

As one of the new forces in car-building, Baiteng Automobile was founded in September 2017 and was once favored by the outside world due to its rapid development before 2020. At the beginning of its establishment, with its strong background and luxury star team, Baiteng Automobile successfully obtained a number of large-amount financing, including Tencent Investment, FAW and other star enterprises and investors. The court ruling shows that its cumulative financing amount is as high as $821 million.

In addition, FAW Group also strongly supported Baiteng Automobile and transferred its subsidiary FAW Huali to Baiteng Automobile at the price of 1 yuan, thus obtaining the production qualification of new energy automobile. At that time, industry insiders even thought that Baiteng was the new force most likely to impact Tesla. From the perspective of development history, Baiteng Automobile was founded no later than "Wei Xiaoli", but now it is sad to go bankrupt and liquidate.

In January 2018, the first concept version of a new car was unveiled at CES, and the first production model was named BYTON M-Byte. In January 2019, Baiteng announced details of its first production car and made it clear that it would be officially put into production in mid-2020. However, Baiteng not only ran out of funds, but also fell into shutdown and employee arrears, and the first mass production has not been seen so far.

At the end of June 2020, Baiteng Automobile said that its financing progress of $500 million in Series C was not smooth. Since then, Baiteng Beijing and Shanghai offices have withdrawn rent, factories have stopped water and electricity, layoffs and arrears have been exposed successively. In June of the same year, Baiteng Automobile was named by CCTV because "8.4 billion yuan was burned out and no mass production car could be built." After that, Baiteng Automobile announced that it would suspend its business operation in Mainland China from July 1,2020, with all staff waiting for their posts and shutdown for half a year.

Since then, Baiteng Automobile has also tried a series of "self-help". After entering 2021, Baiteng successively decided and implemented three restructuring schemes, including cooperation with Foxconn, restructuring of Harmony Joint Fund and restructuring of KXIN Kaixin Automobile. However, due to different interest considerations between investors and some shareholders and creditors of Baiteng, the progress was slow, and Foxconn, which had intended to take over Baiteng Automobile, finally announced its abandonment.

On January 19,2023, Baiteng Group signed the Strategic Cooperation and Investment Agreement with DEEV Company of Romania. The agreement includes that Baiteng Group will help DEEV Company replicate Baiteng factory in Romania, and then DEEV Company will invest Baiteng to obtain 70% equity of Baiteng. However, this agreement is still in the stage of technical cooperation scheme implementation and investment optimization. Whether DEEV Company will acquire Baiteng's equity has not been determined at present.

According to the two affiliated companies of Baiteng Automobile, Baiteng Group's automobile complete vehicle project is a major construction project. Once the company enters bankruptcy liquidation procedure, the automobile production qualification will be cancelled by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the previous investment of all parties will be wasted.

However, in the fierce competition in the automobile market, it is not only Baiteng family that is on the verge of bankruptcy or going bankrupt and liquidated. Baiteng's "fall" is only a microcosm of the new force of car building. Since entering 2023, automobile enterprises including Weima Automobile, Skyline Automobile, Aichi Automobile and Reading Automobile have faced difficulties to varying degrees.

With the transformation of the automobile industry, the new forces of car building face "life and death speed", and this year is a year of accelerated reshuffle for car manufacturers. If car manufacturers do not have the products to sell, elimination may only be a matter of time. However, Baiteng Automobile, which has not improved after several reorganization attempts, has already appeared very difficult in the new energy automobile industry that enters the more intense "knockout competition".

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