https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-28/chinese-rival-to-elon-musk-is-said-to-face-crunch-at-car-startup Chinese Rival to Tesla Faces a Debt Crunch November 27, 2017 Selina Wang, David Ramli and Giles Turner P R Sanjai
[image https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iviJOz1lAVn0/v0/800x-1.jpg The Faraday Future FFZero1 concept vehicle Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg ] The dwindling empire of China’s Jia Yueting, who once boasted he would leapfrog Tesla Inc., faces a new hurdle as his U.S. electric car startup struggles to raise a $500 million funding round, people familiar with the matter said. [image] Jia Yueting Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg A convertible note of more than $400 million, with a 12 percent interest charge, becomes payable immediately if Faraday & Future Inc. can’t raise the Series A round by December, the people said, asking to not be identified as the matter is private. The electric carmaker, which is also dealing with about $100 million of unpaid bills, hasn’t been able to line up funding after months of searching as it tries to pay off Chinese investors who financed the debt, the people said. Jia gave up control of his crown jewel, a Netflix-like business in China, this year and turned his focus to Faraday, which has ambitions of combining Chinese cash with Western technology skills to challenge Elon Musk’s Tesla in electric vehicles. Part of the company’s problem with fundraising is an inability to get mainland regulators to approve transfers of money out of the country, one of the people said. “We decline to comment, other than we acknowledge that we are in the process of our round A fundraising,” the company said in a statement. Faraday made global waves two years ago when it unveiled a 1,000-horsepower prototype that looked like the Batmobile at the CES technology show in Las Vegas. Jia planned to erect a $1 billion production plant in the Nevada desert and create 4,500 jobs manufacturing cars by 2017. But work on the plant later stopped as Jia admitted that his LeEco empire faced a cash crunch after growing too quickly and across too many product segments. In addition to the video streaming business, Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp., his businesses developed smartphones, movies and TVs. Now, Faraday needs the additional cash to be able to produce actual cars, rather than prototypes. In May, the company was seeking to raise $1 billion, a person familiar with the matter said at the time. If the $500 million funding succeeds, the debt will convert into shares, the people said. LeEco directed requests for comment to Faraday. Jia scored a lifeline in January when property group Sunac China Holdings Ltd. and other investors bought 16.8 billion yuan worth of shares in Leshi and other related companies, 10 billion yuan of which was in exchange for stock owned by Jia, who later stepped down from leading the company. Faraday has already had at least one $30 million bridge loan, the people familiar said. Employees are also owed bonuses and 2016 pay increases, the people added. The company sought out investors that valued the business at between $1.5 billion and $2 billion this year, but potential investors walked away after component makers and media partners demanded money for unpaid bills and Chinese courts began to freeze his shares, the people said. Tata Motors Ltd., the Indian carmaker that owns Jaguar, strongly denied Chinese media reports that it had invested $900 million in Faraday at a $9 billion valuation. [image] Stefan Krause Photographer: Martin Leissl/Bloomberg Stefan Krause, who was chief financial officer before leaving in October, prepared filings for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy while searching for alternative funds, people familiar with the filing said. Jia ultimately killed the plan along with all other proposals that would result in him losing control of the business, the people said. The Indian car-maker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd was interested in becoming a “stalking horse” to set the opening bid as part of a court-supervised auction, the people said. Mahindra declined to comment. Faraday said it “terminated” Krause and former Chief Technology Officer Ulrich Kranz, according to a statement posted on its website this month. Both men, alumni of BMW, told Bloomberg News they quit in October. They declined to comment further on the terms of their departure, pending potential legal action. [© 2017 Bloomberg] [dated] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-17/bmw-lifer-brings-steady-hand-to-shaky-electric-car-maker-faraday Faraday Makes a High-Profile Hire From BMW to Get the FF 91 on the Road July 17, 2017 Faraday Future, the electric car startup backed by an under-siege Chinese ... Ulrich Kranz, the head of BMW's Project i electric vehicle team, has joined Faraday ... ... http://europe.autonews.com/article/20170717/ANE/170719758/bmw-lifer-brings-steady-hand-to-electric-car-maker-faraday BMW lifer brings steady hand to electric-car maker Faraday July 17, 2017 Faraday Future, the electric car startup backed by an under-siege Chinese entrepreneur, has made another high-profile hire at a time of desperate need for ... ... https://www.dezeen.com/2017/07/18/mad-architects-extraterrestrial-campus-electric-cars-faraday-future-california/ MAD unveils "extraterrestrial" campus for electric car brand Faraday Future Jul 18, 2017 Chinese architecture studio MAD has designed a sci-fi-influenced headquarters for Faraday Future, a new car company focussed on electric vehicles ... https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2017/07/mad-campus-worlds-fastest-accelerating-electric-architecture-infrastructure-car-california-usa_dezeen_2364_col_4-1704x2272.jpg ... https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/faraday-future-moving-out-of-north-las-vegas-city-hall/ Faraday Future moving out of North Las Vegas City Hall August 1, 2017 Faraday Future gave a 30-day notice to move out of offices leased inside North Las Vegas City Hall as company executives look for an existing building to ... ... https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/6/16102758/faraday-future-new-factory-hanford-california Faraday Future leases central California factory in attempt to keep its electric car dreams alive Aug 6, 2017 Just last month, Faraday Future scrubbed its ambitious plans for a $1 billion megafactory in Nevada. Now, the electric vehicle startup has found a new location ... ... https://arstechnica.co.uk/cars/2017/08/faraday-future-raises-14m-leases-old-factory-for-future-electric-car-line/ Faraday Future raises $14M, leases old factory for future electric car line Aug 7, 2017 Faraday Future announced on Monday that it has signed a lease on a turn-key manufacturing facility in Hanford, California, south of Fresno. The company has ... ... https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/15/16126744/faraday-future-formula-e-leeco-investment Faraday Future may cut its Formula E team to save cash Aug 15, 2017 The electric car startup has struggled to get its factory project off the ground, lost executives, and ... “Where there is smoke there is fire,” he wrote in a follow-up. ... http://autonews.gasgoo.com/new_energy/70010699.html LeEco’s EV subsidiary CEO resigns and joins rumored affiliate October 17,2017 - Zhang Hailiang, vice president and chief executive of LeEco's electric car affiliate Le Supercar, reportedly resigned as chief executive and ... ... https://jalopnik.com/cfo-brought-on-to-get-faraday-future-on-track-apparentl-1820315209 CFO Brought On To Get Faraday Future On Track Apparently Headed For The Door After Eight Months 11/09/17 The company—led by its main financier, Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, who found the electronics titan LeEco—introduced an electric autonomous car at this ... ... https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/258875-faraday-no-future-things-looking-dim-ev-startup Faraday No Future: Things Looking Dim for EV Startup November 10, 2017 There's little clarity in the future of Faraday Future, the three-year-old California startup hoping to build high-end electric vehicles. Reports have top executives ... ... https://www.slashgear.com/faraday-futures-ev-plans-are-floundering-as-execs-jump-ship-10507610/ Faraday Future's EV plans are floundering as execs jump ship Nov 10, 2017 Faraday Future is discovering it's harder than you might think to start a brand-new electric car company, with numerous executives leaving amid struggles to ... https://c.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/faraday-future-ff-91-1-980x620.jpg ... https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/10/16635798/faraday-future-stefan-krause-jia-yueting-drama Faraday Future issues bombastic statement accusing former CFO of ‘malfeasance and dereliction of duty’ Nov 10, 2017 Stefan Krause, previously of BMW, calls the claims ‘baseless’ Hours after it was made public that struggling electric car startup Faraday ... of options to save the company and its goal of manufacturing an electric vehicle ... https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PyXHSmvCIT3YrecOiG2ViwFTqso=/0x0:2040x1360/920x613/filters:focal(857x517:1183x843)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/57559203/ff-ces-2016-106-2040.0.0.jpg ... https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/10/16633542/faraday-future-stefan-krause-resignation-bmw-trouble Faraday Future loses three top executives as manufacturing stalls Nov 10, 2017 Savior CFO Stefan Krause is out, and the company is in a ‘holding pattern’ Faraday Future emerged out of stealth mode in 2015, promising to deliver an electric vehicle with the performance of a Tesla and advanced technology like ... 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