AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)10/24 Report--

Founded in 2012, GAC-Mitsubishi finally lost out to China.

On October 24th, GAC GROUP issued an announcement that, through consensus among all shareholders, he planned to implement restructuring matters such as equity adjustment to GAC-Mitsubishi and Guang San sales companies, mainly including the joint investment of the three shareholders to GAC-Mitsubishi and Guang San sales companies to pay off debts, of which the company's investment was not more than 1.577 billion yuan, and the other two shareholders' total investment was not less than the amount increased by the company.

In addition, the company will transfer 30% and 20% of GAC-Mitsubishi held by Mitsubishi Motor and Mitsubishi Corporation respectively at a consideration of 1 yuan. After the completion of the transfer, GAC-Mitsubishi will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company. GAC-Mitsubishi will sell 50%, 30% and 20% equity of Guangsan sales company to our company, Mitsubishi Motor and Mitsubishi Corporation respectively at a consideration of 1 yuan; at the same time, in order to meet the needs of daily operating funds, the shareholders of the three parties intend to increase their capital by 450 million yuan to the Guangsan sales company after the completion of the transfer, of which the company will increase its capital by 225 million yuan.

On the same day, the official website of Mitsubishi Motors also issued a notice on the change of business structure in China. Mitsubishi Motors said in the notice that in the past 2-3 years, China's auto industry has faced rapid market changes and the transition to electric vehicles is faster than expected. The company plans to launch new cars in December 2022 to recover sales, but the plan is not up to standard. Since March this year, in order to adjust inventory, the plant has been shut down. Based on this, the company has thoroughly re-examined the China strategy and terminated the local production of Chinese Mitsubishi brand vehicles.

At this point, GAC-Mitsubishi will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of GAC GROUP, and GAC-Mitsubishi Automobile sales Company will be jointly owned by GAC GROUP, Mitsubishi Motor and Mitsubishi Corporation to continue to provide spare parts and after-sales service for GAC-Mitsubishi owners. The restructuring also avoided the dissolution and liquidation of GAC-Mitsubishi.

On October 23, an authorized distributor of GAC-Mitsubishi in Hebei Province said: "We no longer do (GAC-Mitsubishi), and the authorization is gone," the Financial Associated Press reported on October 23. The manufacturer issued a notice saying that in the future, all Mitsubishi will be imported, and domestic (Mitsubishi) will be gone. " At present, the exhibition hall has been basically emptied, the sales staff have also chosen to leave, and the after-sales area will be officially closed in the near future. A salesperson at another GAC-Mitsubishi dealer in Tianjin said that at present, there is no Olander car in the store, and it takes about 10 days to book a car, but the source of the car is the inventory car stored in the factory for more than a year, which can give a discount of up to 50,000 yuan. He pointed out: "recently, there are a lot of people to consult, and we can only give these discounts, and we can't sell them at a loss. There will always be after-sales in our store."

In addition to the above two dealers, a number of GAC-Mitsubishi dealers located in Beijing, Hebei, Tianjin, Shanghai and other places will continue to operate normally in the short term. However, at present, in the dealer list information displayed on GAC-Mitsubishi's official website, most landline phones cannot be dialed, and the actual contact number has been replaced with a private mobile phone number.

GAC-Mitsubishi had a foreboding long before its current defeat. Since March this year, GAC-Mitsubishi has frequently been caught up in rumors of "delisting", but have since been denied by officials. In March, GAC-Mitsubishi official said: "GAC-Mitsubishi is operating normally, Mitsubishi has not withdrawn, and the factory is operating normally." At the end of April, the Changsha plant, GAC-Mitsubishi's only production base in China, suspended production of new cars from March 8 to May because of weak sales, and is expected to restart production in June. Since April, GAC GROUP has no longer announced the sales of GAC-Mitsubishi alone. The official explanation is that the sales are too low to be listed separately.

In May, Mitsubishi Motors President Takao Kato clarified that the company has no plans to withdraw from the Chinese market. Despite "difficulties in China", the Changsha plant will restart production in June as planned. However, the Changsha plant not only failed to restart on schedule, but fell into a suspension of production and layoffs. In July, a "letter to all employees of GAC-Mitsubishi" showed that GAC-Mitsubishi products were affected by market transformation, sales fell far short of expectations, and the company was in trouble. In the general environment of industry reform, after careful discussion between the management of GAC-Mitsubishi and Dongfang, the company officially entered the stage of temporary suspension of production in June. At the same time, GAC-Mitsubishi needs to optimize its personnel structure according to the actual situation.

In September, it was reported that Mitsubishi Motors had decided to stop producing cars in China, and the company had begun final negotiations with GAC GROUP. At that time, the head of Mitsubishi's public relations department, Yuji Inoue, said that the report was not officially released by the company and was "still in dialogue with shareholders and has not made any decision yet." Although officials have repeatedly denied rumors of GAC-Mitsubishi delisting, it has become a marginal brand.

As one of the first Japanese brands to enter the Chinese market, Mitsubishi Motors has been in China for 50 years. As early as 1973, Mitsubishi sold medium-sized trucks in China, and then successively set up two joint ventures in the Chinese market, namely, Southeast Automobile and GAC-Mitsubishi. However, although Mitsubishi Motors set up the Chinese market very early, looking back on Mitsubishi's wasted time in China, its life in the Chinese market is really miserable.

In May 2012, GAC GROUP, Mitsubishi Automotive Industry Co., Ltd. and Mitsubishi Commercial Co., Ltd. jointly established GAC-Mitsubishi Joint Venture, with a shareholding ratio of 50%, 9.35% and 40.65%, respectively. Compared with Toyota and Honda, Mitsubishi Motors is smaller, the model products are relatively simple, and the channel layout is very limited, which is also the feedback that GAC-Mitsubishi is not satisfied after entering the Chinese market.

At present, GAC-Mitsubishi's models on sale include the New Outlander, New Jinxuan, Yige and the new energy model Atuco, of which the new energy model is the only Artuco. Olander is the main sales product of GAC-Mitsubishi. GAC-Mitsubishi was founded in 2012, but it didn't shine until 2016 when the European Blue was made in Germany. Data show that from 2019 to 2019, the annual sales of GAC-Mitsubishi were 117300, 144000 and 133000 respectively. Since then, the replacement of Outlander has been slow, and sales have plummeted as a result. In 2020, the annual sales of Olander was only 57000, while the annual sales of GAC-Mitsubishi also fell to 75000. Now, with the defeat of GAC-Mitsubishi, it may be difficult for Outlander to win consumer recognition.

Or in order to reverse the decline, Dongfang has successively received more than 2.8 billion yuan of blood transfusion to GAC-Mitsubishi, but it is also difficult to turn the tide after the input of a huge amount of funds. According to GAC GROUP's latest announcement, as of December 31, 2022, GAC-Mitsubishi has audited total assets of 6.122 billion yuan, total liabilities of 4.959 billion yuan, net assets of 1.163 billion yuan, operating income of 4.13 billion yuan and total profits of-1.349 billion yuan. As of March 31, 2023, the audited total assets are 4.198 billion yuan, total liabilities are 5.613 billion yuan, and net assets are-1.414 billion yuan.

As of press time, GAC-Mitsubishi Wechat official account, official Weibo and other account updates stayed in April, and there have been no updates since. For GAC-Mitsubishi, which has declining sales, a single model product and a debt of nearly 4.959 billion yuan, defeat in China is a foregone conclusion.

The industry believes that GAC-Mitsubishi's termination of domestic production may be more conducive to the development of Mitsubishi Motor and GAC GROUP, while GAC Ean's takeover of the Changsha plant can also maximize the use of resources. GAC GROUP's latest announcement shows that after the completion of this restructuring, GAC-Mitsubishi will become a wholly owned subsidiary of the company and will be used in the production of independent brand new energy vehicles. The company will strengthen overall planning and coordination, comprehensive measures, actively respond to the impact of the rapid development and fierce competition of the new energy vehicle industry, and strive to achieve the expected goal of restructuring.

Of course, GAC-Mitsubishi is not the only joint venture brand in trouble, and the past decade has been perhaps the best for joint ventures in China's fiercely competitive new energy car market. Today, joint venture car companies must make fundamental innovations if they want to survive against the backdrop of the downturn. At present, the trend of new energy is irresistible, which also means that new energy is the only way to compete for the flow among automobile companies, and the restructuring of GAC-Mitsubishi has once again sounded the alarm to the joint venture car companies. "change or live" may be that any joint venture car company can not escape the test of the electrified era, and car companies in transition still need to seize time to keep up with the times.

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