Jia Yueting's New Auto Firm Is Just an Empty Shell
Dou Shicong
DATE:  Mar 27 2018
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
Jia Yueting's New Auto Firm Is Just an Empty Shell Jia Yueting's New Auto Firm Is Just an Empty Shell

(Yicai Global) March 27 -- Embattled Chinese entrepreneur Jia Yueting's latest carmaking venture is nothing but an empty shell.

A reporter from China Business Journal visited the registered address of his new Guangzhou-based company, which was thought to be a unit he set up to build a factory in the southern city,  but found that building staff hadn't heard of the firm and that the office space has been vacant since the last tenants departed.

Smart Mobility Hong Kong Holdings Ltd., an affiliate of Jia's United States-based electric carmaker Faraday & Future Inc., is the legal owner of Ruichi Smart Car Guangzhou Ltd. and set up the firm on Feb. 12 with registered capital of USD300 million. Three weeks later, the Guangzhou municipal government put an industrial plot of land up for sale, requiring bidders to be automotive firms set up in the city's Nansha district, where Ruichi is registered, with capital of at least USD300 million.

As Jia's new company fits the bill so perfectly, market participants suspected he was planning to acquire the land parcel and build a local plant for Faraday Future vehicles. An executive at Leshi Holding Beijing Co., the parent of Jia's struggling LeEco conglomerate, told China Business Journal that he didn't know what was happening on the Chinese mainland but did confirm that Faraday Future had begun construction of its new California plant.

Smart Mobility Hong Kong is the controlling shareholder of FF Motor China Co., whose official Weibo account is owned by Faraday Future. The company posted five job advertisements on the social media platform between Jan. 12 and March 16, looking to fill more than 210 vacancies in Shanghai and Beijing.

Jia has been living in exile from the Chinese mainland after racking up billions in debt as his over-stretched tech conglomerate. He resigned as chairman of its listed arm Leshi Internation and Information Technology Corp. in July and left to the US to focus on Faraday Future.

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Keywords:   Jia Yueting,Faraday & Future,Guangzhou,Leshi