On July 31, Qoros Automobile Co., Ltd. added a new tax arrears announcement. The tax arrears types are urban maintenance and construction tax, property tax, stamp duty, personal income tax, consumption tax and urban land use tax. The tax authority is the Suzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau of the State Taxation Administration, and the total amount of tax arrears is more than 42.52 million yuan. Up to now, the cumulative tax arrears of Qoros Automobile total 54.07 million yuan.
All the information shows that the once high-end positioned Qoros Automobile has long come to the brink.
On August 1, the enterprise status of Hangzhou Chengmao Investment Co., Ltd. changed from survival to revoked and not cancelled. It is understood that Hangzhou Chengmao Company was established in April 2017, with the legal representative being Sun Li and the registered capital of 2.5 billion yuan. The business scope includes industrial investment, investment management, investment consulting, enterprise management consulting, import and export of goods and technologies, etc., and is jointly held by Wuhu Xinzhi Investment Center (Limited Partnership) and Baoneng New Energy Automobile Group Co., Ltd. The equity structure shows that Hangzhou Chengmao holds 63% of the equity of the controlled automobile and is the first controlling shareholder.
In the past nearly one month, Qoros Automobile has added a number of information on the person subject to enforcement and equity freeze. On July 30, Qoros Automobile Co., Ltd. added a piece of information on the person subject to enforcement, with the execution target of about 108 million yuan, involving a housing lease contract dispute case, and the execution court is the Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court. On July 22, Qoros Automobile Co., Ltd., Wuhu City Baoneng Real Estate Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Baoneng Investment Group Co., Ltd., and Baoneng Real Estate Co., Ltd. added a piece of information on the person subject to enforcement, with the execution target of more than 220 million yuan, and the execution court is the Shandong Provincial Jinan Intermediate People’s Court. According to Tianyancha, there are more than 30 pieces of information on the person subject to enforcement of Qoros Automobile Co., Ltd., and the total amount of the execution exceeds 740 million yuan. In addition, the company also has a number of restricted consumption orders, information on the dishonored person subject to enforcement and final case.
Started from Chery and ended with Baoneng!
In December 2007, Chery Automobile and Israel Corporation jointly funded the establishment of Chery Quantum Automobile Co., Ltd. At first, Chery and Israel Corporation held 55% and 45% of the equity respectively, and then adjusted to 50% each after negotiation in 2009.
In November 2011, Chery Quantum Automotive Co., Ltd. was renamed Qoros Automotive Co., Ltd. and launched the automotive brand “Qoros Automobile”. In November 2013, Qoros Automobile made its debut at the 11th Guangzhou International Auto Show and launched its first mass-produced model – Qoros 3. At that time, Qoros 3 won industry recognition with its excellent design, quality and safety performance. It achieved the highest score in history in the European New Car Assessment Program (E-NCAP) and became the first Chinese model to obtain a five-star rating from Euro NCAP, and also the first Chinese brand to win the Red Dot Design Award. Unfortunately, the market performance of Qoros 3 was very dismal. In 2014, it only sold 6,967 units, and in 2015, it sold 14,247 units.
By 2016, Qoros launched its second mass-produced vehicle – Qoros 5, with a price range of 139,900 – 194,900 yuan, but the market performance was also not good. The data shows that in 2016, the cumulative sales volume of Qoros Automobile was 24,188 units, among which Qoros 5 was 10,878 units and Qoros 3 was 13,310 units.
The sales crisis was directly reflected in the financial statements. From 2014 to 2016, the annual losses of Qoros Automobile were 2.2 billion yuan, 2.5 billion yuan and 1.9 billion yuan respectively, with a cumulative loss of 6.6 billion yuan. In 2017, Chery Automobile transferred the equity of Qoros Automobile, and Baoneng Automobile became the takeover party. The latter acquired 51% of the equity of Qoros Automobile with 6.63 billion yuan and became the largest shareholder.
According to public information, Baoneng Group has five major sectors including comprehensive property development, finance, modern logistics, cultural tourism, and livelihood industries. In 2017, Yao Zhenhua officially announced cross-border car-making and established Baoneng Automobile Group. Qoros Automobile can be said to be the starting point of Baoneng’s car-making and also a crucial link. In order to drive the development of Baoneng’s automotive business, Yao Zhenhua also poached three former executives from BAIC. At that time, the chairman of Baoneng Group, Yao Zhenhua, was full of confidence and planned to invest 10 billion yuan in new car research and development every year for five consecutive years starting from 2018, and it was expected to launch 26 new models by 2022.
However, after entering Baoneng Group, the situation of Qoros Automobile has not improved. In the early stage, it mainly relied on the Linkyun car rental platform to achieve sales growth, but its performance in the terminal market is hard to describe. Since 2021, Qoros Automobile has begun to have problems such as the loss of internal employees and the rights protection of external suppliers and dealers. At present, its operating conditions are particularly difficult. According to the query, in the past few years, the relevant people’s courts have inquired about the property information clues of Qoros Automobile through financial institutions, on-site investigations and other methods. The conclusion is almost that Qoros Automobile has no immediately available property for enforcement.
In May 2022, the Shandong Provincial Automobile Distribution Association issued a document, listing the Qoros brand car in the consumer blacklist and issuing a consumer warning. The reason is that the association received many complaints from Qoros car owners in Jinan that there is no 4S store for maintenance and repair, and the inquiry letter mailed to the headquarters of Baoneng Group was also returned.
At present, many Qoros 4S stores across the country have been shut down, and Qoros car owners generally encounter problems such as “no way” to repair cars and difficulty in cash maintenance extensions. On the complaint platform, there are more than 400 complaints involving Qoros brand cars. The main reasons for the complaints include the loss of contact after the vehicle is sold, the inability to cash the free maintenance and repair services, and sales fraud. According to the official website, the current models on sale of Qoros Automobile include Qoros 7, Qoros 5S, and Qoros 3. The terminal sales show that the sales volume of Qoros 7 in the first half of the year is 53 units.
