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The troubled Weimar finally ushered in a new turnaround.

Apollo Smart Travel, a Hong Kong listed company, announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it had completed a strategic merger with Weimar Motor on January 11 and that the company would acquire the entire issued share capital of WM Motor Global Investment Limited, a subsidiary of Weimar, for US $2.02 billion (about RMB 13.696 billion) and settle the matter by allocating 28.8 billion shares at HK $0.55 per share. In other words, Weimar went public by way of mergers and acquisitions, with a price-to-earnings ratio of 3.7.

On the same day, Weimar issued a "Major official announcement" on official account. Apollo Smart Travel Holdings Limited (SEHK stock code: 860) reached a conditional sale and purchase agreement with Weima Group and proposed that the total amount of the placing shares would be about HK $3.918 billion and the proposed temporary financing would be about RMB 720 million. At the same time, Weimar shareholders have pledged HK $1.5 billion in standing financing. "

In fact, there is a sign that Weimar will be acquired by Apollo. In December 2022, Apollo Smart Travel announced that it plans to acquire a company engaged in smart electric vehicles, the target company's business covers a range of smart electric vehicles equipped with advanced technology, targeting young and tech-savvy users in China (especially families), and this "potential acquirer" is alleged to be Weimar. On the same day, the news that Weimar plans to list Hong Kong shares through backdoor Apollo Wisdom Travel Group also triggered a strong discussion in the industry, but the relevant person in charge of Weima said: "the above are only market rumors, Weima does not comment on the market rumors, please also pay attention to the company's official response, the official information is correct information." And Apollo travel insiders also said that "there is no relevant news."

It is understood that the acquisition of Weimar Motor to Apollo Wisdom Travel Group is a Hong Kong stock listed company, established in 2002, the global headquarters is in Hong Kong. Apollo Smart Travel, which has a team of engineers from Germany, the UK and Japan, has three Apollo supercar models, according to its website.

Apollo was formerly the German niche supercar maker Gumpert, which used to be Audi's royal retrofit plant. In 2007, Gumpert launched its first model, the Apollo, but declared bankruptcy in 2012 because of a broken capital chain. it was acquired by a Hong Kong investment company and renamed Apollo. In March 2020, the Hong Kong Jewelry and Watch Trading and Investment Company announced the completion of the acquisition of 86.06 per cent of the shares in Apollo. After taking control of the company, Richie changed its name to AFMG and unveiled the first electric supercar Apollo IE at the third China Expo held in the same year, which sold for as much as $3 million. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Weimar acquired a 28.51% stake in Richie, making it the largest shareholder in AFMG. Shen Hui, founder of Weimar, served as co-chairman and non-executive director of AFMG. On September 28th, 2022, Lijiang changed its name to "Apollo Wisdom Travel Group Co., Ltd.", and its English name "Apollo Future Mobility Group Limited" remained unchanged.

As for Weima Automobile, it was also one of the leading car companies of the new forces in China earlier. Weimar was founded in 2015 by Shen Hui, former vice president of Geely Holdings Group, and is headquartered in Shanghai. Reviewing the development history of Weima Automobile, Weima Automobile has quite an advantage over Wei Xiaoli, which was founded in the same period, regardless of its founding time or car-building qualification. For example, Weimar has two self-built factories with a capacity of 250000 vehicles, a financing scale of more than 30 billion yuan, and more than 600 distribution stores. At the same time, the founder of Weima Motors has rich experience in the automobile industry. Shen Hui served as vice president of Geely Holdings Group from 2009 to 2014, while Li Bin, he Xiaopeng and Li Xiang, founders of Wei Xiaoli, were all "half-way monks".

Back to the topic of Apollo travel to buy Weima, the reason why Apollo chose Weimar is to take a fancy to Weima's production base and sales resources. The contents of the merger and acquisition documents show that Weimar will support Apollo Smart Travel's mass production plan and distribution resources in the future. In addition, according to relevant sources, Weimar will launch a new brand with Apollo Smart Travel, which will be jointly developed by the two parties, which is aimed at the high-end market and is expected to sell for more than $100000.

Weimar has been planning to go public for a long time, but its road to listing is very tortuous. Now it is a new turning point to carry out a bilateral strategy with Apollo Wisdom Travel, and it is reported that Weimar may complete its listing in the second quarter of this year. It should be noted that the transaction price of Weima subsidiary acquired by Apollo is 2.023 billion US dollars, and the total valuation of Weima in this transaction is 2.51 billion US dollars, while in the previous Hong Kong stock prospectus, Weima's post-investment valuation is 7.04 billion US dollars, which also means that Weima Motor's valuation is much lower than before. In addition, the automobile industry has noticed that at noon today, the official announcement of "Major official announcement" was released in Weimar. Shortly after the announcement, Shen Hui shared on his Weibo a classic clip from the movie Hibiscus Town: "Live, live like an animal", which may allude to the current situation of Weimar.

According to the data, Weimar firmly ranked second in the New Power with delivery volume of 16900 vehicles in 2019. Since then, sales have declined year after year, falling to 44200 vehicles in 2021. After 2022, there is a lot of negative news about Weima cars in the market, including wage cuts, layoffs, shop closures, or acquisitions, and the sales downturn is becoming more and more serious. Delivery volume fell 10.26% to 32300 vehicles in November compared with the same period last year. December Weimar W6 sales were 20 and EX5 sales were 10, according to the Federation of passengers. In addition to the depressed sales, since 2023, it has been revealed that many companies have asked the court to seize and freeze Weima's property with a total value of about 130 million yuan, and so on. Weima Motor has made a loss of more than 10 billion yuan since 2017, which is closely related to its production and operation.

Up to now, Weimar has four models: EX5, W6, E.5 and M7, all of which are priced in the range of 150000-350000 yuan. with the completion of the merger of Apollo and Weima, Weima's product matrix will cover ultra-luxury, high-end and mainstream markets. Of course, it is very important for Weimar to get a sum of life-saving money, and the first priority before getting the money is to "live".

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