The financing scale of Lailai Automobile has exceeded 25 billion yuan this year, and the overseas market has become its main investment direction.

SMM Network News: once threatened by the situation, Weilai Motor, since this year, in the field of financing seems to be "open and hang" in general.

According to the statistics of the Financial Associated Press, as of September 3, the total amount of financing of Lulai Motor in the primary and secondary markets exceeded 25 billion yuan, or about 25.4 billion yuan. Among them, it does not include 10.4 billion yuan of unsecured, unsecured comprehensive credit.

After passing the "line of life and death", where will the money go after holding a lot of cash and becoming a "rich man"?

Six financing projects have been completed this year.

Weilai's latest financing took place on September 3. On that day, Ulai announced the completion of the issue of 101.775 million American depositary shares (ADS), including 13.275 million additional ADS shares purchased by the underwriter (each ADS represents a Class A company common share) at a price of US $17 each, with a total financing of US $1.73 billion (about RMB 12.1 billion).

Earlier, on Aug. 31, Weilai said it would issue 88.5 million shares of ADS, an 18% increase from the size of the offering announced on Aug. 27. The final result of the offering far exceeded expectations and became the largest financing so far this year.

Xilai mentioned that one of the uses of the funds raised in the offering is to increase its stake in China and buy back shares held by minority shareholders in China. According to the shareholders' agreement signed on April 29 this year with strategic investors and other parties in Hefei to invest in Weilai China, Weilai can increase its equity in China by exercising the right to increase capital enjoyed in the agreement. as a result, the company's stake in Weilai China will be increased by 1.9%. As a value-added measure for Weilai investors, Weilai can increase its shareholding in Weilai China by 8.6% through redemption and repurchase of minority shareholders in China.

The second largest financing in Weilai this year comes precisely from the Hefei strategic investor in the aforementioned agreement. According to the shareholder agreement signed by Weilai with Hefei strategic investors and other parties on Weilai's investment in China, the total investment of strategic investors to Weilai (Anhui) is 7 billion yuan in cash.

Prior to this, Weilai also completed a total of US $435 million in convertible bond financing, or about 3 billion yuan, on February 6, February 14 and March 5 this year, respectively. By June 15, it had completed an additional issue of 72 million shares at a price of US $5.95 per share, while 10.8 million shares had been issued with 30-day additional subscription rights, totaling 82.8 million shares. This time, the total amount of financing for this rights issue is nearly 500 million US dollars, or about 3.5 billion yuan.

"in the short term, we have passed the 'life-and-death line'." At the Chengdu auto show at the end of July, before the completion of the latest round of rights issues, Li Bin, CEO of Lulai Motor, heaved a sigh of relief.

Synchronized with the "open-hanging" financing of Weilai, the share price of Xilai Automobile has soared all the way up. Compared with a low of $2.11 per share on March 18 this year, on Aug. 26, the share price of Xilai Motor reached its peak of $21.05 per share after its debut in the US stock market, an increase of nearly 900%. As of Sept. 3, U. S. stocks closed at $18.70 per share, with a total market capitalization of more than $22.8 billion.

Moreover, on July 10 this year, Weilai Motor also received a comprehensive credit of RMB 10.4 billion from six domestic banks to support the operation and development of Weilai's business in China. "this credit is unsecured and unsecured." Li Bin said.

How to spend the money from Wei Lai?

"the additional offering was successful, exceeding 1.7 billion US dollars. There is plenty of food and food, so we have a big fight. " Qin Lihong, president of Lulai Automobile, wrote in moments after a reporter from the Financial Associated Press disclosed the latest financing news on August 31.

In addition to increasing its stake in China, the funds raised will also be used for "self-driving technology research and development, global market expansion and general corporate uses", according to the announcement.

At the end of 2018, Wu Sili, former chief development officer and CEO of the United States, left, and Li Bin was directly in charge of autopilot, digital systems, information architecture and other businesses. Subsequently, due to a shortage of funds, Xilai carried out several rounds of layoffs for North American employees. At that time, it was generally believed in the industry that Weilai had given up its own research and development of self-driving technology.

However, as the financial crunch has eased, its actions in the field of autopilot technology research and development have become frequent again. On August 11, Li Bin said that the current quarterly R & D expenditure of about 600 million yuan, the future investment in self-driving technology research and development will certainly increase; August 15, the former Momenta R & D director Ren Shaoqing joined Weilai, in charge of autopilot R & D business, while Weilai announced that the autopilot R & D team will be domestic; On September 1st, Junsheng Electronics announced that its subsidiary, United Intelligence Bank, was designated for the 5G-V2X platform project of Lulai Automobile a few days ago, with a project amount of about 660 million yuan.

In addition to the research and development of self-driving technology, it can be expected that Weilai is laying out for access to overseas markets.

"now it should be said that it is close to thinking clearly, and has begun to gradually enter the implementation state, which means that we begin the preparation of the product, the preparation of the personnel, and the preparation of all aspects." In response to the question about whether he has any plans to enter overseas markets at this year's Chengdu auto show, Li Bin also revealed that since the end of last year, Weilai has spent a lot of time discussing global plans. and set up a special inter-departmental organization to do strategic planning for the global market. "for the American market, I have some very good idea, I discussed with the team for more than half a year, how to rely on the product and the underlying business logic, combined with the American scene, the habits of American users, there are some subversive business model innovation. I've been thinking about this since 2016, and I'm basically getting it figured out. "

However, at present, it seems that the United States is not the first overseas market that Ulai will land.

"We hope to start a preliminary trial in countries where electric cars are more popular in the second half of next year." In an interview with foreign media after launching the BaaS business on August 20, Li Bin made it clear after giving a relatively vague time point that "more markets will begin to enter in 2022, and more comprehensive access to a wider range of markets in 2023 and 2024."

What Li Bin called "a country where electric cars are more popular" is self-evident. Data show that from January to July this year, affected by the subsidy policy, the cumulative number of electric vehicles registered in Europe has reached 500000 (including mixed), surpassing China's 486000, and becoming the world's largest new energy vehicle market.

This may mean that Europe will be the first stop in the overseas market of Xilai.

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