Ai’ an sprinted for science and technology, went to the United States, Weimar borrowed from the door, and the IPO year of car companies came.

2022 is a "cold winter" for the new car industry. With the contraction of global liquidity, the intensification of geopolitical conflicts and the recurrence of epidemics, the financing environment has deteriorated. In addition to the successful landing of a zero-run car on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, second-tier brands such as Weimar Automobile and Nezha Automobile, which have been planning IPOs, have either repeatedly hit a wall or fallen into silence.

The listed new forces are not much better. The decline in Tesla’s share price has driven the entire new energy sector to plummet like a roller coaster. Wei Xiaoli’s market value was cut short in just a few months in 2022, and even the highest drop reached 80%. Although the retail run was lucky enough to be listed successfully, the stock price broke on the day of listing, and the market value was also halved in a week.

However, after entering 2023, the liquidity of RMB and USD has changed in a positive direction, and the capital market is gradually picking up, which is just conducive to the sprint listing of car companies. Not only is it a new force to build cars in the second line, but also new brands launched by traditional car companies such as Ai ‘an, Extreme Krypton and Lantu are waiting for the opportunity. For them, 2023 -2025 may be the last IPO financing opportunity. In the future, the disparity between strength and weakness is more obvious, and it is even more difficult to go public again. So, what are the chances of these remaining car companies IPO in 2023?

Weimar automobile

Weimar automobile may be the new force that has hit the wall the most times. It has hit science and technology innovation board and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges several times, but it has failed in the end. Last year, news of layoffs, salary cuts and frozen assets came from Weimar Automobile, which means that the pressure on Weimar’s capital chain has been extremely great. If we can’t find a way out, I’m afraid we will say goodbye to Weimar in 2023.

In this context, at the beginning of this year, Weimar Automobile announced that it had reached an acquisition agreement with APOLLO Travel, a Hong Kong-listed company. Since Freeman Shen, the founder, chairman and CEO of Weimar Automobile, is the non-executive director and major shareholder of Apollo Travel, this move is considered as Weimar’s hope to "backdoor" the Hong Kong Stock Exchange through reverse acquisition.

According to the previously disclosed acquisition contents, since the target company accounts for about 80.93% of Weimar’s total share capital, it is roughly estimated that its valuation is about 2.51 billion US dollars (about 17 billion yuan). Obviously, this has been greatly reduced compared with the valuation of Weimar Automobile at its peak, but as long as it can be listed smoothly, at least it is qualified to continue to play in the car-making industry. As a connotation map shared by Freeman Shen on social platforms said: "Live like an animal."

It is expected that Weimar’s backdoor listing will be realized in the second quarter, but it is not certain, and there are still some uncertainties. The announcement also suggested that the reasons involving the company’s very important acquisitions, anti-takeover actions and related party transactions still need to wait for the approval of the listing Committee and the voting at the shareholders’ meeting. I hope Weimar can go smoothly in Du Jie this time.

Nezha automobile

In 2020, Nezha Automobile revealed its plan to go public in 2021, but there has been no substantial movement in the two years from 2021 to 2022. Obviously, Weimar’s experience has made other car companies’ listing plans more cautious. However, preparations for Nezha’s car in the back have been going on.

In February, 2022, it was revealed that Nezha Auto began to carry out share reform, planning to sprint Hong Kong stocks. By the end of December, 360 Group, the second largest shareholder of Nezha Automobile, announced that Nezha Automobile Co., Ltd. is expected to be established on December 31, 2022. This means that the time for Nezha Auto to officially rush to IPO is not far away, perhaps in 2023.

In 2022, Nezha Automobile delivered a total of 152,073 vehicles, up by 118% year-on-year. It not only became one of the few new forces that could achieve the annual target, but also won the first place in terms of the number of vehicles delivered, becoming the first brand of new forces with annual sales exceeding 150,000 vehicles. It can be seen that Nezha Auto is increasing its chips for future IPOs in terms of performance. From this point of view, the current Nezha automobile may have a better chance of success than the original Weimar automobile.

GAC AION

There is no doubt that the successful landing in science and technology innovation board in 2023 can be said to be 99.9% of the things for Guangzhou Automobile Aeon.

After completing the A-round financing of 18.294 billion yuan last year and successfully expanding the market value from 40 billion to 100 billion yuan, GAC Ai ‘an seems to be only one step away from "the first new energy vehicle in science and technology innovation board" in terms of public opinion and preparation. The official attitude towards the sprint to science and technology innovation board is almost self-evident. As the parent company of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an, Guangzhou Automobile Group also spared no effort to promote this, because now almost all the core assets of Guangzhou Automobile are placed on Ai ‘an.

Ai ‘an himself is also a success. Judging from the current sales situation, in 2022, Ai ‘an squeezed into the top five in the sales list of new energy manufacturers. At the end of 2022, Ai ‘an released the high-end brand Haobo, which gave the market more imagination. There is a parent with a background who has worked hard and achieved good results, and the story is basically complete. It is really impossible to find out the possibility of Ai ‘an’s failure in listing.

Aichi automobile

In the new forces of building cars, Aichi Automobile actually doesn’t have much sense of existence. After all, before 2022, Aichi Automobile has not listed a new car for two whole years. During this period, the situation of Aichi and Weimar was similar, and it was also because of "lack of money" that they were busy saving themselves. At the beginning of 2022, Aichi Automobile received hundreds of millions of dollars of financing from Chen Xuanlin and its subsidiary Dongbai Group. With the operation of the new boss, Aichi not only launched a new car again, but also reopened the IPO plan.

In September 2022, the listing path of Aichi Automobile was finally clear, and it adopted the same reverse acquisition backdoor listing as Weimar Automobile. Huaxia Boya, a Nasdaq-listed education and training enterprise, announced that it had reached a non-binding cooperation intention with Aichi Automobile to acquire all the outstanding shares of Aichi Automobile. Not long ago, Huaxia Boya has received a warning letter from Nasdaq for delisting. Therefore, Huaxia Boya is a shell, and the listing of Aichi Automobile is realized through the acquisition of Aichi Automobile.

But now four months have passed and no new progress has been announced. Whether there will be any variables in this process, and whether Aichi can land in the capital market faster than Weimar is still unknown.

Lantu automobile

Although the current sales volume of Lantu Automobile is not so good, the speed of market-oriented reform is not slow at all. In August last year, the capital increase project of Lantu Automobile was pre-disclosed on the Shanghai United Assets and Equity Exchange, which was the first external equity financing of Lantu Automobile. This fundraising also means that the market-oriented reform of Lantu has taken another step.

In November, this round of financing of Lantu finally landed, with a financing amount of nearly 5 billion yuan and a market valuation of nearly 30 billion yuan after financing, making it the largest first round of financing in the domestic new energy automobile industry so far. Shen Jun, CFO of Lantu Automobile, also revealed that in the next step, Lantu will take the opportunity to continue the follow-up round of financing, and will also consider the follow-up IPO plan based on the market and regulatory policies.

Although it is only a word about IPO. However, whether from Dongfeng Group’s expectation of Lantu or the need of Lantu’s own development, if possible, IPO is bound to be considered. However, judging from the current market performance of Lantu, I am afraid it is still difficult to meet the conditions of IPO in the domestic capital market, so the possibility of IPO in 2023 is also very low.

Extreme krypton car

At the end of 2022, Geely Automobile suddenly announced that its extremely krypton automobile had secretly submitted the IPO registration documents to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. At this point, this "traditional new force" established less than two years ago began to break through the IPO.

It looks like expect the unexpected, but Geely, who is actually good at capital operation, obviously chose a relatively good opportunity and environment to promote the extremely krypton IPO in the United States. At this time, Sino-US relations have eased, the interest rate hike cycle in the United States is coming to an end, and the liquidity problem has eased. In the stock market, the new energy sector represented by Tesla began to show signs of recovery after experiencing a sharp drop. Therefore, Li Shufu and Geely’s experience in capital operation is still quite profound.

Although the sales momentum of Krypton in China is good at present, the short establishment time, the increasing loss situation of enterprises and how to write the story of new energy are still the potential negative effects of Krypton cars on the way to IPO in the United States and the problems that need to be solved.

Zhiji automobile

As early as 2021, it was reported that Zhiji Automobile had made plans for independent operation and independent IPO after its establishment. Tamia Liu, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile, once told the media that he had a very clear and complete plan for financing and listing. In August 2022, Zhiji Automobile completed the A round of equity financing, with a valuation of nearly 30 billion yuan. But this is obviously only the first step of external financing, and it is far from the time of IPO.

The cumulative sales volume of Zhiji Automobile in 2022 is only 5,000 vehicles, which is basically the bottom level among a number of new energy brands. This is also the reason why Zhiji Automobile will not accelerate the IPO at present.

Aouita

Although Aouita was founded just over a year ago, after all, there are industry giants such as Changan, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited and Huawei standing behind it, which can be said to be born with a golden key. Therefore, even if it is only more than a year, Aouita not only quickly launched the first model, but also completed the A round of financing, with a valuation close to 10 billion yuan. The speed of this action is much faster than the above "traditional new forces".

Therefore, Aouita will want an IPO sooner or later. Changan Automobile also said on the investor interaction platform that Aouita has an independent development of science and technology, a highly market-oriented operation, and deep integration of strategic partner resources, and has an independent listing plan in the future. However, Aouita should not be urgent about IPO, because before IPO, Aouita must first have a certain market sales base as a support; On the other hand, the current valuation of Aouita is obviously unable to satisfy the appetite of several industry giants. Aouita should consider independent listing only after the sales volume and valuation have reached a relatively ideal level.

Write at the end:

At present, 2023-2025 should be an IPO year for new car-making forces, whether for the choice of timing and environment or the needs of their own development. Weimar, Ai ‘an and other car companies that have been operating since the second half of last year will have a high possibility of successful IPO this year. And people like Zhiji and Aouita may take 1-2 years to make full preparations from now on, and strive to complete the IPO around 2025. (Text/Youshi Auto Old Gun)

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