Finally! Maybe?… After declaring bankruptcy in the USA months ago, now a Hong Kong court has called for a liquidation of Evergrande. It’s not clear what will happen with its assets in Mainland China, though. It’s complicated, after all. Companies like these are not built to be easy to break up.
As you might recall, Evergrande has a car-making venture that had lofty goals of building millions of cars a year. Called Hengchi, its seen its own troubles, CarNewsChina even reported earlier this month that the President of Evergrande Auto and Hengchi was arrested for corruption charges! Read here: https://carnewschina.com/2024/01/09/president-of-evergrande-auto-and-hengchi-brand-arrested/
I was surprised that the Hengchi experiment moved on despite all of Evergrande’s troubles, actually starting production in 2022 (https://carnewschina.com/2023/05/30/die-another-day-hengchi-5-resumed-production-in-the-tianjin-plant/). Getting into cars was a huge bet, developing all those cars at the same time and with Western designers was hugely expensive. Being a part of a conglomerate on the verge of bankruptcy for so long, who was going to take the risk of buying a car from a possibly soon-to-be-orphaned brand? Apparently, around a thousand customers in all of 2023. And who knows how many of those are actual retail buyers…
Will Hengshi rise up like the fenix under new management? We’ll see.
ripituc 