Peter Sawajian
Nick Sampson
Similar to the situation two years ago, Jia Yueting's 'ALL IN' Faraday's Future (hereinafter referred to as FF) also encountered the funds '扼 throat'. On October 31, the Beijing News reporter learned from FF that the two co-founders of FF have For the FF current residual funds situation, FF insiders responded exclusively to the Beijing News, the current plan is to run until the end of December, 'certainly not much money, these two months is the life and death line', the above FF insiders Weighing.
FF only retains 500 core employees
On October 31, FF issued the “Statement on Temporary Measures for Short-Term Cash Flow Difficulties” (hereinafter referred to as “Declaration”). The statement stated that “The recent series of defaults by Evergrande Health led to the FF’s face-to-face Difficult to serious cash flow'.
On October 3, FF filed investment-related arbitration with Evergrande in Hong Kong. On October 8th, Evergrande Health announced that it would not disclose the two. FF and Evergrande's investment 'Luoshengmen' continued to ferment. 4. Tight funds, salary cuts, layoffs, executive departures and other issues have broken out.
FF said in the "Declaration": 'Last week, FF won the emergency relief arbitration against Evergrande, which gave us the opportunity to obtain financial support from other sources. ' However, the statement also said: 'May this year Most of the employees who joined FF after 1st will be suspended from work in November and December. For those who joined before May 1st this year, they will continue to work in the company to promote the delivery of FF 91 mass production, but the salary needs to be temporarily Down. '
The "Declaration" said, 'We also thanked the more than 500 core team members who chose to stay.'
It is understood that FF has nearly 2,000 people worldwide, including more than 500 in China and more than 1,300 in the United States.
Jia Yueting only receives 1 dollar annual salary
Yesterday, an FF insider confirmed to the Beijing News that the two FF co-founders had left.
On October 29th, Peter Savagian, one of FF's three founders and senior vice president of technology and product development, left the company, who has served as a GM executive for a long time; October 30 On the day, Nick Sampson, one of the three co-founders of FF, also resigned. So far, the three co-founders of FF have only one person.
FF said in the "Declaration": 'We also understand that for individual executives who choose to leave in difficult times.'
According to foreign media reports, in response to the foreign technology media the Verge, Nick Sampson said: 'The assets of FF company are actually insolvent. I think my future role in Faraday is not a way I can go. So I chose to leave the company. '
Sampson said: 'If the situation changes substantially, I will definitely consider returning to the company.' This also explains from the side that he left FF more for financial reasons than for business reasons.
For Sampson’s above statement, the Beijing News reporter did not receive a formal response from FF.
In the face of funding shortages, FF first started with a pay cut. On October 22, FF internal letter said that FF executives in the United States automatically cut their salary by more than 20%.
The biggest pay cut is FF founder and CEO Jia Yueting, who said in the letter that he will only receive one dollar a year in the future.
Prior to this, LeTV was facing a funding crisis, and Jia Yueting had taken similar actions. On November 6, 2016, the then LeTV chairman Jia Yueting sent an internal mailer: “The sea and flames of LeTV: whether it was swallowed by huge waves or boiled the ocean”. In his letter, he said: 'The pace of LeEco's strategy is too fast, and the organization and funds are facing great challenges. I and the company's management will take responsibility for this. From now on, I will voluntarily only receive the company's annual salary of 1 yuan.'
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FF expects financing results after two months
The salary cut, layoffs point to the financial difficulties of FF, contact with new financing or Jia Yueting and FF to solve the new path of the problem.
On October 31, FF stated in the “Declaration” that 'this temporary measure is expected to last until the end of December, but this will depend on the various financing progress we are actively promoting. In our efforts to retain employee and supplier partnerships At the same time, we are currently negotiating with many investors from different backgrounds around the world, and will disclose information in a timely manner.
In this regard, FF insiders revealed that the company is currently trying to solve the current cash flow difficulties through multi-channel, multi-dimensional financing methods, it is expected to resume the normal operation of the company and restore the salary of employees in about 2 months.
However, FF did not disclose new financing targets.
A person familiar with the situation who is not willing to be named, Jia Yueting, revealed that before the contradictions with Evergrande were publicized, Jia Yueting had been looking for new financing, trying to get rid of the difficulties brought by Evergrande.
In the announcement on October 9, FF said that the only reason for its attempt to get rid of Evergrande was that Evergrande failed to fulfill its intentions and then refused to pay the funds it had agreed to pay. Evergrande should not refuse to pay funds on the one hand, another The party enjoys the rights and interests of the supplementary agreement, including taking over most of the management rights of FF China.
The Beijing News previously reported exclusively, FF said that the supplementary agreement was first proposed by Evergrande Health. Part of the content is that if FF reaches the pre-production preparation, Evergrande Health will enter US$300 million before July 31, 2018; By the end of 2018, Q4 will spend a total of 500 million US dollars, that is, to pay 200 million US dollars by the end of 2018; by January 2019, a total of 700 million US dollars will come in, that is, in January 2019, another 200 million US dollars will be spent.
In response to the above problems, Evergrande Health did not answer on the grounds of confidentiality agreements.
However, people close to Evergrande had previously told the Beijing News: 'We have money, we have already paid 800 million US dollars in advance, but the next payment depends on whether the payment terms are met. We must be optimistic about this car before investing. '
In addition, the above-mentioned people denied that Evergrande had stopped FF's new financing. FF has no new financing. Why stop it? After the fall of FF and Evergrande, I believe it is more difficult to raise funds. Basically, there is no way to go. . ' FF insiders are reluctant to comment on new financing.