AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)01/18 Report--

Faraday Future and Huanggang City have signed a strategic cooperation agreement, and the two sides will contribute their respective advantages in investment, scientific and technological innovation, industrial transformation, location and policy, the FF official said in a Weibo post today.

According to the framework agreement signed by the two sides, the Huanggang Municipal Government will actively assist FF in the industrial layout and deployment of relevant resources in Huanggang City, and provide, but not limited to, financial and policy support for FF's entrepreneurial projects in Huanggang City. Faraday Future plans to relocate its FF China headquarters to Huanggang City and retain its global headquarters in Los Angeles, California. FF China headquarters will also be jointly funded by Huanggang Municipal Government funds, related industrial funds and FF. Subsequently, the Huanggang government also announced on the government website that in order to speed up the layout of the new energy industry, Huanggang City is actively discussing future cooperation with Faraday, a foreign-funded enterprise, and the two sides have signed the Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement in the third quarter of 2022.

It is understood that the FF signed a strategic agreement with Huanggang in Hubei Province, and the industrial fund of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in Hubei Province played a great role in promoting it. In recent years, Huanggang City has made great efforts to develop the new energy vehicle industry, and the Yangtze River Industrial Fund has had many contacts with FF since 2021. Song Sen, Vice President of Strategic Cooperation of FF China, visited Hubei Changjiang Fund Management Company in October 2021 to discuss strategic cooperation between FF China headquarters and FF 91 vehicle research and development, production, sales and operation. In November of the same year, Chen Xuefeng, CEO of FF China, also visited the Yangtze River Industrial Fund and had in-depth talks with senior executives of the Yangtze River Industrial Fund.

Relevant data show that the establishment of the Yangtze River Industrial Fund in 2015 is a major strategic decision made by the Hubei provincial party committee and provincial government to seize the strategic opportunity of the development of the Yangtze River economic belt and promote the rise of the central region, and to promote the industrial development and transformation and upgrading of Hubei Province. The provincial finance contributed 40 billion yuan to set up the industrial guidance fund of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in Hubei Province, and the guiding fund initiated the establishment of a number of industrial investment funds in cooperation with all kinds of capital at home and abroad. together constitute a group of industrial funds of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in Hubei Province with a scale of 200 billion yuan. Through the establishment of sub-funds or direct investment in major projects, industrial funds eventually form a strategic emerging industry of about 1 trillion yuan in Hubei.

The main mission of the Yangtze River Industrial Fund is to develop industries, focus on the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industries, extensively integrate funds, projects, talents and other superior resources with a global perspective, and promote the breakthrough development of strategic emerging industries in Hubei Province. At present, the Yangtze River Industrial Fund has joined projects involving high-end equipment manufacturing, biomedical industry, robot industry, new energy projects, new energy vehicle industry and new generation information technology industry chain, etc. Its core investment projects include Ningde period, NIO vehicles, Geely Lutes, Yitong Technology, Geely Intelligent Network Union headquarters, Weimar vehicles, Fario China R & D projects and so on.

It is worth noting that yesterday FF's official Weibo released a copy of FF's return home, with a poster of "going Home" during the Spring Festival and a photo of FF91 Futurist parked in an international cargo warehouse. And the article said: three years of hardship, how much sad and tired. A suitcase, thousands of thoughts and concerns. Looking back on the bleak place and going back, there is no wind, rain or sunshine. The five-day countdown to the Spring Festival of the year of the Rabbit, go home, rain or shine! Where there is home, there is the spark of faith. 2023, looking forward to FF coming home! The poster on his return home uses Su Shi's poem "Don't listen to the sound of beating leaves through the forest": "looking back on the bleak place, there is no wind, rain or sunshine." Borrowing from the state of mind in which he was demoted to Huangzhou at that time, he reflected his inability to be reunited with his family. The Weibo post immediately sparked a heated debate after it was sent out yesterday, and from today's FF announcement of a cooperation with Huanggang City, yesterday's home copy suddenly became clear.

In fact, there has been a lot of news about Faraday's future headquarters in China in recent years, but it has come to nothing since then. As early as 2019, it was reported that FF had signed an agreement with Nine cities to set up a joint venture company to produce electric cars in China. Nine cities proposed to inject US $600 million, and FF and Nine cities each had a 50% stake in the joint venture company. Later, because the joint venture company did not meet the conditions, there was no follow-up to the cooperation. In 2021, there are media reports that Faraday will build a production base in Zhuhai in the future. In the latest round of financing of FF, Zhuhai state-owned assets will participate in the investment of 2 billion yuan. On July 15 of the same year, according to a notice issued by PSAC, the Chinese "first-tier city" that originally invested in FF was unable to complete the investment due to foreign exchange reasons, and its investment quota has now been transferred to relevant investment institutions, which also represents the collapse of FF's cooperation with Zhuhai. In November 2021, it was reported that French Automobile (China) Co., Ltd. held an online working meeting with the management committee of Shanxi Changzhi High-tech Zone, and the two sides discussed all aspects of Faraday's future Chinese production base in Changzhi, Shanxi Province. However, at that time, Faraday responded to the news in the future: no comment.

In addition to announcing the signing of a strategic cooperation agreement with Huanggang City, FF also announced the signing of a revised and restated shareholder agreement with FF Top, a wholly-owned subsidiary of FF Global, in its posting. The new shareholder agreement strengthens FF Top's position as a significant shareholder. FF Top will have the super voting right at 1:10 and the right to nominate four of seven directors of the board of directors. Subject to shareholder approval, FF   Top will have the super voting right at 1:20 when FF's market capitalization reaches $3 billion. It also revealed that the FF 91 Futurist electric car, which can be put into mass production at the end of March 2023, is expected to be offline in early April and delivered by the end of April. The signing of the shareholder agreement also marks the end of Faraday's previous infighting in the future.

It has been eight years since Jia Yueting founded FF, but so far it has not been delivered. According to the original plan, the FF91, the first production car of FF, was originally scheduled to be officially delivered to the first batch of car owners in July last year, but the delivery was postponed again because of problems such as capital breakage. FF was only one foot away from mass production, but it took several years to kick. It is unclear whether FF's first production car will be delivered on time by the end of April, but Faraday's future is almost financially exhausted, with a cumulative loss of $3.3 billion (23.6 billion yuan) as of Sept. 30, 2022, Faraday's future total assets of about $541 million and total liabilities of about $253 million. At this time, holding hands with the Huanggang municipal government is undoubtedly good news for the future of Faraday. After all, the FF at this stage needs funds and business to land, and the Huanggang government can provide it.

However, for the signing of strategic cooperation between FF and Huanggang City, many industry insiders said they were not optimistic. After all, even if Huanggang can bring in investment, it will help Faraday achieve domestic production in the future. The production and delivery of vehicles is just the beginning, and the follow-up will face a series of processes such as sales, after-sale and so on. In terms of Faraday's current brand reputation in the future, it is uncertain whether it will be competent in the future. In addition, some people in the legal industry pointed out that the future of Faraday and Huanggang City signed a non-binding cooperation framework agreement. In most strategic cooperation framework agreements, it is generally agreed that "this agreement is a framework agreement and is only intended to demonstrate the willingness of both parties to carry out friendly cooperation and does not constitute legally binding obligations or commitments on both parties". In other words, the agreement can be cancelled at any time, even if the subsequent cancellation will not constitute a breach of contract or be held responsible for breach of contract.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat