AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)07/22 Report--

On July 21, Sichuan Mustang Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Mustang Motor") added a bankruptcy review case. The applicant was Chongqing Senmai Auto parts Co., Ltd., and the handling court was the people's Court of Longquanyi District, Chengdu.

Although it was eventually acquired by low-speed electric car companies, Mustang also had a glorious history.

At the end of 1980s, Mustang was born in the spring tide of reform and opening up. "Jinding" series of passenger cars, "Mustang", "Bailu" light off-road vehicles and passenger and cargo vehicles are popular all over the country. In 2002, Fulin Group merged and reorganized the Sichuan Automobile Group (the predecessor of Mustang), which was in trouble in production and operation, and then changed its name to Mustang. It is understood that Mustang is the only local vehicle manufacturing enterprise in Sichuan Province that has complete production qualifications for both new and traditional energy passenger cars and passenger cars.

It is worth noting that Mustang is also one of the first companies to join the manufacturing of new energy vehicles. In 2012, Mustang officially completed and put into production the new energy production base in Mianyang, striving to be in the forefront of its own brands. In November of the same year, the pure electric model of Mustang codenamed SQJ6452BEV won the national production qualification of new energy passenger vehicles. However, in the independent new energy vehicle market, Mustang never came to the fore.

At a time when traditional car companies are speeding up their elimination, Mustang is also in sales difficulties.

In December 2018, Mustang listed for sale of 82.5% of its shares at a transfer price of 1.2 billion yuan. According to public data, the revenue of Mustang in 2017 was 2.056 billion yuan, with a net loss of 385 million yuan. From January to October 2018, the total revenue of Mustang was only 662 million yuan, the net loss was 363 million yuan, the total debt of the company was 3.834 billion yuan, and the debt ratio was 84.36%.

Despite huge losses, Mustang has the production qualification of traditional passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles and new energy vehicles, and has built a production base of 200000 fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles in Chengdu and Mianyang. In the eyes of many companies, it is still a rare "resource".

At that time, almost all the recipients of the equity transfer of vehicle manufacturers were newly established car-building forces, which were usually well-funded but lack of car-building qualifications. As one of the early starters of domestic new energy vehicles, Mustang is relatively complete in terms of technical basis and qualifications, including 640 million yuan for houses and buildings and 350 million yuan for machinery and equipment.

In January 2019, Reading signed a strategic restructuring agreement with Mustang in Chengdu. Reading already owns 100% of Mustang, which means that Reading officially owns Mustang and obtains passenger car production qualification through the acquisition of Mustang.

According to the data, Reading Automobile Group Co., Ltd. was established in October 2012, with a registered and paid-in capital of 100 million yuan, the legal representative is Wang Dejin, and the company was formerly known as "Shandong Maillard Energy Power Technology Co., Ltd." the controlling shareholder is Bidwen holding Group Co., Ltd. According to SkyEye, Li Guoxin, the sponsor of Reading Automobile Group Co., Ltd., stepped down as a legal person, executive director and general manager of Bidwen Holdings Group Co., Ltd in December 2020.

In the early stage, Reading mainly developed in the low-speed electric car market, and then acquired Shaanxi Qinxing Automobile and Sichuan Automobile Mustang to obtain the production qualification of new energy passenger cars, fuel passenger cars and passenger cars. In the passenger car market, it has successively launched reading i3, i5, i9 and other models, but these models are basically the same as low-speed electric cars, until the launch of the mango model, Redding did not have a sense of existence. In 2022, Reading began to fall into a deep operating crisis, and negative news such as shortage of funds, limited production capacity and large-scale withdrawal of dealers have been exposed one after another.

Li Guoxin, founder of Reading, posted a "real name report letter" on his official Wechat account earlier this year, but the authorities quickly deleted it, and Li Guoxin was later rumored to have settled overseas.

In February, an "open letter from Jiangsu dealers to the joint investigation team of Reading Province and City" (hereinafter referred to as the "open letter") circulated among Reading dealers. The "open letter" listed many unreasonable operations of Reading cars in the course of operation, resulting in dealers losing millions of yuan. Read car dealers believe that, "Reading from the beginning is a fraud for the purpose of the company, every step of the operation is a well-planned scam." The dealers said, "the dealer is the victim of the Reading scam, and the Jiangsu dealer asked the joint investigation team to strictly investigate the matter and give them an explanation." Since then, Reading has not publicly responded to the matter, and even raised the price of its models without taboo.

A few months after "disappearing", Reading Motor added a bankruptcy review case, the case number is (2023) Lu 0725 Breshen No. 1, the applicant and the respondent are both Reading Automobile Group Co., Ltd., and the handling court is the people's Court of Changle County, Weifang City, Shandong Province. However, information on the bankruptcy review case of Reading Motor is no longer available.

On July 17, Reading added an equity freeze information to Sichuan Mustang Motor Co., Ltd., freezing the equity amount of 2.574 billion yuan for a period from July 17, 2023 to July 16, 2026. The enforcement court is the people's Court of Changle County, Shandong Province.

Since the beginning of this year, Mustang has been involved in about 100 civil cases, mostly defendants, involving sales, loans and other contract disputes, up to 33 enforcement cases and 7 consumption restriction orders, involving a total amount of 171 million yuan.

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