According to documents submitted by Hillhouse Capital to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as of December 31, 2019, Hillhouse Capital had no longer held NIO Automobile shares. Prior to this, Hillhouse Capital has been the main investor of NIO. In 2015, Hillhouse Capital led the US $ 100 million in NIO Automobile’s round A financing, and continued to follow in the C round and C + round. On September 12, 2018, NIO Automobile was successfully listed on the NASDAQ. At that time, Hillhouse Capital held a 7.5% shareholding and was the third largest shareholder of NIO Automobile.
It is understood that in 2019, NIO Automobile experienced a great test. The stock price fell to US $ 1.19, until the third quarter financial report was released at the end of 2019, NIO’s stock price began to rebound due to better financial results than market expectations. In the second quarter of 2019, Hillhouse Capital increased its shareholding in NIO to 41,938,286 shares, but in the third quarter, Hillhouse Capital reduced its shareholding to 13.368 million shares, a reduction of 68.12%. .
Despite being cleared by Hillhouse Capital, NIO’s recent financing progress has also been quite smooth. On February 6, 2020, NIO completed a total of approximately US $ 100 million in convertible debt financing. The investors were two Asian investment funds with no affiliation with them, amounting to US $ 70 million and about 30 million US dollars; on February 14th, NIO Automobile once again announced that it has received $ 100 million in financing. At the same time, NIO announced that the company still has a number of other financing projects in progress, the results are still uncertain at this stage. The company will comply with corresponding legal requirements and disclose important progress or information in a timely manner.
According to the official information released by the company, in January 2020, NIO delivered 1,598 units, a year-on-year decrease of 11.5%. However, if only 16 effective delivery days are counted in January, the average daily delivery will increase by 22 %. Previously, Li Bin, the founder and CEO of NIO, stated that the company’s top priority in 2020 is to achieve a positive gross profit. According to 2019 financial report data, NIO’s sales gross profit has indeed gradually improved. In the second quarter, NIO gross profit was -24.1%, which rose to -6.8% in the third quarter.
