AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/13 Report--

On March 7, GAC GROUP released its production and sales data for February this year. The data show that GAC GROUP produced 151919 cars in February, an increase of 46.2% over the same period last year, and sold 1.43464 billion cars, an increase of 36.5% over the same period last year. Among them, the independent and joint venture sales performance are eye-catching, but the Guangzhou Auto Fick in the GAC GROUP brand has poor data. Guangzhou Auto Fick produced only 35 vehicles in February and sold 134 vehicles, down 94.64% from the same period last year, compared with 1725 in January.

According to relevant data, Guangzhou Auto Fick produced 16300 vehicles in 2021, the capacity utilization rate was only 9.95%, and the production capacity of more than 470000 vehicles was idle. In the first two months of 2022, the production of GAC Fick was 820 vehicles, down 77.5% from the same period last year, and the capacity utilization rate was only 3%, of which only 35 vehicles were produced in February, while GAC Fick is located in Hunan Changsha National Economic and technological Development Zone with a vehicle capacity of 164000 vehicles, engine production capacity of 488000 units and nearly 2000 employees, but what is surprising is that if the February output is only 35 vehicles. It is equivalent to producing only one car a day, and the capacity utilization rate is less than 1%.

According to the official website of Guangzhou Auto Fick, Guangzhou Automobile Fiat Chrysler Co., Ltd. was established on March 9, 2010. it is jointly invested and constructed by Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd. (GAC GROUP) and Stellantis Group with a share ratio of 50:50, with a total investment of about 17 billion yuan.

On Sept. 8 last year, the Stellantis Group said in a statement that GAC Fick's plant in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province had been closed, leaving only the plant in Changsha, due to low capacity utilization and aging of the plant's production line.

In fact, in the past two years, Guangzhou Auto Fick has also tried to "save itself" by means of capital increase, coach change and new strategy. In August 2020 and July 2021, Fick Group and GAC GROUP also worked together to inject capital into Guangzhou Auto Fick, totaling 4 billion yuan. On May 10, 2021, the Fiat Chrysler Group announced that GAC Fick appointed Zhu Hengli as the deputy general manager and executive committee member of the company. On July 31 of the same year, with the nomination of Fiat Chrysler Group and the approval of the board of directors of GAC Fick, Mu Anze was appointed as the president of GAC Fick, fully responsible for the operation and management of the Jeep brand in China. In addition, GAC Fick also publicly announced in 2021 that it would launch a new strategy of One Jeep in China, combining Jeep products from previous imported channels with Jeep products from domestic channels to unify the image of Jeep in the Chinese market. But in spite of this, in the end, there was still no substantial growth in GAC Fick's sales. Prior to this, Zeng Qinghong, chairman of GAC GROUP, also said that Guangzhou Auto Fick needs to have a full sense of crisis, must speed up the pace of product renewal and improve product quality, but means such as capital increase, coach change and new strategy do not seem to be able to increase GAC Fick's sales.

On January 27th this year, Stellantis Group announced on its website that it plans to increase its stake in the joint venture Guangzhou Auto Fick from the current 50% to 75%. If the equity adjustment is approved, GAC GROUP and Stellantis Group's shareholding in Guangzhou Auto Fick will change from 50 ∶ 50 to 25 ∶ 75. However, not long after the news was released, GAC GROUP issued an announcement denying: "GAC GROUP learned of his announcement on the equity adjustment of Guangzhou Auto Fick from the official website of Stellantis. This release has not been approved by us, and the two sides have not yet signed a formal agreement on the equity adjustment of Guangzhou Auto Fick. With regard to foreign joint ventures and cooperation, GAC GROUP will strictly abide by the national policies and regulations and promote it on the principle of mutual trust and win-win results. However, industry insiders believe that from the current development of Guangzhou Auto Fick, equity change may only be a matter of time.

Data show that Guangzhou Auto Fick's main brand Jeep was officially localized in 2015, and the first model was widely welcomed by the market after it was launched. Then Guangzhou Auto Fick Jeep successively introduced models such as the Compass, Free Man and Free Light. GAC Fick sold 179900 vehicles in 2016 and 222300 in 2017, but its sales continued to decline after 2018. In 2018, the Fiat brand of GAC Fick also announced its withdrawal from the Chinese market because of poor sales. From 2018 to 2020, its sales were 125200, 73900 and 40500 respectively, while in the past 2021, GAC Fick's cumulative sales were only 20100, down 50.33% from the same period last year, making it the car company with the fastest decline in sales of GAC GROUP. From the data, it is not difficult to find that GAC Fick's sales have almost plummeted from 2018 to 2021.

At present, Guangzhou Auto Fick models for sale include Compass, Commander, Free Light, Liberty Man, Commander PHEV, of which the Compass is the sales pillar of the Jeep brand, with sales of 11796 vehicles in 2021, accounting for more than 50% of the total sales. At present, GAC Fick is in financial crisis in addition to the continuous decline in sales. In the past three years, the cumulative net loss of GAC Fick is close to 5 billion yuan, and the net asset of GAC Fick in 2020 is-331 million yuan. According to the semi-annual financial report of GAC Fick in 2021, the total assets of GAC Fick is 10.339 billion yuan and the total liability is 11.778 billion yuan. In other words, GAC Fick is in the dilemma of being insolvent.

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