Faraday Future’s Chinese founder completes personal bankruptcy process
July 2, 2020
BEIJING (Reuters) – Jia Yueting, founder of Leshi Internet and electric vehicle (EV) maker Faraday Future, said on Thursday his personal bankruptcy process was complete and that a trust would be established to compensate Leshi shareholders.
In a stock exchange filing, however, Leshi said it had not heard from Jia regarding a compensation plan or a related arrangement. It added it was unable to verify whether shareholders would be compensated.
The entrepreneur is well-known in China for building a video-streaming business into an electronics manufacturer, before starting Faraday Future with a stated ambition to overtake U.S. electric vehicle (EV) maker Tesla Inc.
However, the cash-intensive enterprise left Jia filing for bankruptcy in October with personal net debt of around $2 billion. To date, Faraday Future has only produced a small number of test models.
In a post on Chinese social media platform Weibo, the former executive said the bankruptcy process ended on June 26, and apologised to investors and creditors for any financial loss.
Jia, currently “Chief Product and User-Eco Officer” of Faraday Future, also said fundraising for the EV maker was “going well”. The automaker plans to “quickly complete its IPO programme soon,” Jia said without elaborating.
(Reporting by Yilei Sun and Brenda Goh; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Mark Potter)