AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)12/16 Report--

Taobao China Holdings Co., Ltd. plans to sell 25 million shares of Xiaopeng Motor, worth about $391 million, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Alibaba announced the sale of part of its stake in Xiaopeng Motor, with a share of about 25 million shares and a cash amount of about $400m. It is understood that Alibaba's move is mainly to implement the strategy of realizing return on investment in his Q3 quarterly report. After reducing his stock holdings, Xiaopeng's second largest shareholder is still Alibaba, whose shareholding ratio has dropped from 10.2% to 7.5%.

In response, the person in charge of Alibaba Group said, "We have sold some of our shares in Xiaopeng in accordance with our own capital management objectives. Xiaopeng is one of the leaders in the field of electric vehicles in China, with which we have established a strategic cooperative relationship. we believe in Xiaopeng's prospects and look forward to continuous cooperation with the company."

According to public data, Xiaopeng Motor was founded in 2014 and headquartered in Guangzhou, co-founded by he Xiaopeng, Xia Heng, he Tao and others. He Xiaopeng, former founder of UC and president of Ali Mobile Business Group, is one of Xiaopeng's earliest investors. He Xiaopeng left Alibaba to become chairman of Xiaopeng Automobile in August 2017. In October of the same year, the G3, the first mass-produced model of Xiaopeng, was officially off the line.

On August 27th, Xiaopeng Motor was officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol of "XPEV". The IPO was priced at $15, becoming the third new car-building force listed in the United States after Weilai and ideal. At the close of the day, Xiaopeng's shares closed at $21.22, up 41.47% from the offering price.

Before Xiaopeng Motor landed in the United States, Xiaopeng Motor experienced three rounds of financing: A0, A1, A2 financing, A0 round from Alibaba Group and he Xiaopeng himself; A1 round for GGV Capital, Morningside Capital, IDG, Jingwei Capital, Shunwei Capital and Light Control Capital; A2 round has Xinding Capital, Kunzhong Capital and Lightspeed Venture Capital. According to the prospectus, the former management of IPO Xiaopeng Motor holds 40.9% of the shares, with he Xiaopeng holding 31.6% as the largest shareholder and Ali holding 14.4% as the largest external shareholder. Other major shareholders include Xiaomi, GGV GGV Capital and Morningside Capital. In addition, Xiaopeng Motor completed a total investment of more than 900 million US dollars one month before its listing, including Alibaba, Hillhouse, Sequoia, Qatar Investment Authority and so on.

Xiaopeng stressed that it has also established strategic cooperation with Volkswagen this year, and Volkswagen is currently the third largest shareholder of Xiaopeng. On December 6, Xiaopeng announced that it had signed a technical framework agreement on strategic technical cooperation with Volkswagen (China) Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Volkswagen China"). At the same time, Xiaopeng issued Class A common shares to Volkswagen under the share purchase Agreement under the General mandate, and a total of approximately 94.0793 million Class A common shares (subscription shares) have been successfully allotted and issued to Volkswagen Finance Luxemburg S.A. (Volkswagen affiliates) at the purchase price of US $15 per American depositary share, with a total nominal value of US $940.79255. According to the announcement, Volkswagen will hold about 4.99% of Xiaopeng's share capital after the deal is completed, and Volkswagen will become Xiaopeng's third largest shareholder, after he Xiaopeng and Alibaba Group holding Co., Ltd.

Under the agreement, the two sides plan to jointly develop two Volkswagen brand electric models for the medium-sized car market in China, which will complement the product portfolio based on the MEB platform and plan to enter the market in 2026. The two pure electric models jointly developed by Xiaopeng and Volkswagen will be based on the electric vehicle platform and software of the Xiaopeng G9. Xiaopeng will contribute the vehicle platform as well as intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving system. Volkswagen offers the world's leading engineering and supply chain capabilities, both of which hang the Volkswagen logo.

However, Xiaopeng's financial performance is not good. According to the financial report, Xiaopeng's operating income in the first three quarters was 17.626 billion yuan, down 18.83 percent from the same period last year; the net loss was 9.028 billion yuan, down 33.20 percent from the same period last year. Xiaopeng's cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term investment and time deposits were 36.48 billion yuan, up 8% from the previous quarter, an increase of 2.74 billion yuan compared with the previous quarter. Officials said that due to the rise in the company's share price, the share value of Volkswagen's equity investment increased accordingly, so the fair value change included a "non-cash loss" of 970 million yuan, which was basically flat month-on-month after excluding fair value changes.

From the point of view of delivery volume, Xiaopeng Motor will suffer more severe market impact in 2023. In the first 11 months of 2023, Xiaopeng sold a total of 121500 vehicles, compared with 10.98% of the same period last year. The newly launched G6 and G9 have become the main sales models of Xiaopeng. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Xiaopeng will launch the first MPV model, Xiaopeng X9, to be delivered in 2024. In addition, Xiaopeng has plans for many new models. Among them, Xiaopeng Automobile and Didi launched a new brand "MONA" in 2024 after establishing a strategic partnership, and helped sink the market through this model.

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