Revealing where the money of Nezha Automobile has gone
The cruel truth about Nezha Automobile has once again entered the mainstream view.
Recently, CCTV's "Focus Interview" heavily exposed the operational chaos of Nezha Automobile, uncovering the cruel truth of this former new - force sales champion falling from the peak to the bottom. From 2021 to 2023, Nezha Automobile accumulated a net loss of up to 18.3 billion yuan. On average, it lost more than 80,000 yuan for each car sold. State - owned assets in many places such as Yichun in Jiangxi, Nanning in Guangxi, and Tongxiang in Zhejiang have invested more than 8 billion yuan in total and are now deeply mired. Currently, the factories have completely shut down, and the company has entered the stage of bankruptcy reorganization. Most of the state - owned assets are facing the dilemma of losing all their investments.
Public information shows that in the second half of 2025, Hozon New Energy, the operating entity of Nezha Automobile, was applied for "bankruptcy reorganization" by creditors.
It is understood that currently, Hozon New Energy, the operating entity of Nezha Automobile, only has 15 million yuan in available funds on its account, but it bears 26 billion yuan in debt and owes 460 million yuan in salaries to more than 5,000 employees. The factories in three places have all stopped production, leaving only empty workshops.
For such a collapse of the company, both Zhang Yong, the then CEO of Nezha Automobile, and Fang Yunzhou, the founder of Nezha Automobile, are hard to absolve themselves of blame.
Public information shows that in March this year, Fang Yunzhou and Zhang Yong were listed as dishonest debtors (deadbeats). Fang Yunzhou has been restricted from high - end consumption hundreds of times.
This time they were listed as deadbeats because the Yichun Langling Consulting Center, jointly operated by the two, refused to pay a debt of 2.268 million yuan.
At the same time, the two have basically "disappeared". Zhang Yong's last public appearance was a year ago.
In April last year, there were rumors in the market that Zhang Yong had applied for a visa before leaving Nezha Automobile and was currently in the UK. On the 14th of that month, Zhang Yong posted on his WeChat Moments, saying that he still served as an advisor to Nezha Automobile and was running around for the company to raise funds. However, he did not directly respond to whether he was in the UK.
Fang Yunzhou last appeared in the mainstream view on June 11th last year.
At that time, he was in the new Shanghai headquarters of Nezha Automobile and was surrounded in the office by Nezha employees who came to ask for their salaries. In the video, Fang Yunzhou sounded very impatient and still seemed arrogant. He questioned these under - paid employees, "We've worked together in the company. Why has it come to this?"
Yes, neither the state - owned assets nor the salary - seeking employees want it to be like this. Not to mention the car owners.
In September last year, nearly 500,000 Nezha car owners suddenly encountered a large - scale disconnection of the car infotainment system. The direct reason was that Nezha Automobile had not paid the car infotainment system traffic service provider on time. As a result, the service provider had to terminate the car - networking traffic service for Nezha Automobile and switched to a self - paid purchase model for car owners.
So, how did Nezha Automobile turn from a former sales champion into a current mess? What fatal hidden dangers did Zhang Yong and Fang Yunzhou plant?
AI Lanmeihui exclusively obtained some documents about Nezha Automobile's market communication before the storm and interviewed some former Nezha employees. Maybe we can get a glimpse of the secrets.
Sudden "Storm"
The storm of Nezha Automobile happened at the end of 2024.
It was very sudden within the company at that time.
A former Nezha Automobile employee told AI Lanmeihui that in October of that year, Nezha Automobile suddenly announced internally that only half of the September salary would be paid, and then launched a series of actions such as salary adjustments and layoffs for optimization.
Originally, many employees thought that Nezha Automobile could at least last until 2025. Especially in June 2024, there were rumors that the company was going to IPO in Hong Kong. Everyone thought the company was about to go public.
But the reality was extremely cold.
According to media reports, it was because some Nezha Automobile employees posted in October 2024 that they did not receive their September salaries on time that some shareholders of Nezha Automobile knew that the company's capital chain was in such a tight situation.
Before that, many shareholders were kept in the dark.
The prospectus of Nezha Automobile shows that since 2017, Hozon New Energy, the operating entity of Nezha Automobile, has completed 10 rounds of financing, with a total amount of 22.844 billion yuan. Before the storm, the top five shareholders of Hozon New Energy included Fang Yunzhou and the controlled entities, relevant investors under the concerted action arrangements such as Yichun entities, Minsheng Equity (Nanning Fund), Huading Capital, and 360 Security. In addition, the Finance Bureau of Tongxiang City, Hefei High - tech, and CATL also invested in Hozon New Energy.
In terms of specific shareholding, Fang Yunzhou, the founder and chairman of Nezha Automobile, holds about 11.82% of the shares, and his concerted action persons jointly control about 20.28% of the shares; Minsheng Equity (Nanning Fund) holds about 11.46%; Huading Capital holds about 9.82%; 360 holds about 9.12%.
It was also starting from October 2024 that Nezha Automobile took a series of self - rescue actions. There were once rumors in the market that the layoff ratio in some departments of Nezha was as high as 70%. However, this news was later denied by Nezha Automobile.
But AI Lanmeihui learned that the large - scale layoff situation did exist at that time. "Some departments were directly cut from seven or eight people to only one person, just to maintain the existing products and existing business," the above - mentioned former employee said.
At the same time, the founder Fang Yunzhou replaced the then CEO Zhang Yong and stepped forward.
At that time, Fang Yunzhou said in an internal letter of Nezha that in the future, the business would focus on the overseas market. In the domestic market, there would be moderate competition. Looking overseas, the company would strive to create several globally popular car models. "In the next 2 - 3 years, half of the sales volume will be in the domestic market and half in the overseas market. The overall gross profit margin will turn positive in 2025, and the company will achieve overall profitability in 2026."
But this kind of story could no longer impress investors.
According to media reports, after the capital chain crisis occurred in October, Nezha held a shareholders' meeting. At the meeting, the senior management hoped that the shareholders could invest more money. A person who knew the details of the negotiation said that the process of negotiating the investment was not smooth. The shareholders were reluctant to continue investing because "the trust between the management and the shareholders had cracked", and the company's real capital situation was even more severe.
This directly led to the fact that Nezha Automobile might not be able to find money at that time.
Where Did the Money Go?
On the one hand, the cost was high. On the other hand, it was difficult to achieve positive operating cash flow for a long time. Once there was no new capital injection, Nezha Automobile could only face the dilemma of going bankrupt.
But if we look back at the end of 2022, the market could never have imagined that Nezha Automobile would end up in such a situation two years later. In that year, Nezha Automobile was the sales champion among new car - making forces.
So, what exactly happened during this period? Or rather, where did Nezha's money go?
Zhang Yong, the then CEO, once said publicly in October 2023 that Nezha Automobile had more than 10 billion yuan in its account and the funds were very abundant.
However, this might be a smokescreen.
According to the prospectus, by the end of 2023, the cash and cash equivalents of Nezha Automobile dropped sharply from 6.757 billion yuan in 2022 to about 2.837 billion yuan, but the short - term borrowings and accounts payable were 15.4 billion yuan. By April 2024, the situation further deteriorated. The cash and cash equivalents were only 403 million yuan (unaudited), while the short - term borrowings were 3.771 billion yuan, and the trade payables and bills payable were 5.28 billion yuan, forming a huge capital gap.
Why did Nezha Automobile suddenly run out of money?
AI Lanmeihui noticed that in 2023, Nezha Automobile's revenue was 13.55 billion yuan, with only a 3.8% year - on - year increase. In terms of sales cost, there was a slight decrease. But in that year, the operating expenses of Nezha Automobile increased very exaggeratedly.
In terms of sales and distribution expenses, it directly increased by 84.5% from 1.043 billion yuan in 2022 to 1.92 billion yuan in 2023. Among them, the advertising and publicity expenses increased by 175% year - on - year from 333 million yuan in 2022 to 917 million yuan.
In terms of R & D expenses, it also directly increased by 76.3% from 906 million yuan in 2022 to 1.598 billion yuan.
To simply summarize, without considering the increase in other expenses, in 2023, Nezha Automobile spent about 900 million more on marketing and 700 million more on R & D, but the sales volume decreased by 16.16%, and the revenue only increased by 500 million. In the ranking of new forces, it dropped directly from the first place to the middle and lower reaches.
Such poor performance did not affect the salaries of senior executives such as Zhang Yong and Fang Yunzhou at all.
The prospectus shows that Zhang Yong's total salary in 2023 was 30.994 million yuan, second only to Fang Yunzhou's 47.675 million yuan, including salary, discretionary bonus, share - based payment, and related benefits.
This also triggered the market's suspicion of "the company is in a tight situation, but senior executives are living well".
In addition, during the expansion process that started in 2023, some suspected corrupt behaviors might also be hidden.
"Nezha didn't choose to make steady progress in that year. Instead, it launched several product lines at once. I don't believe there was no corruption among the internal senior management," the above - mentioned former employee gave an example. In the R & D department where he used to work, most of the work was actually wasted on docking, and the reason was to connect with different suppliers.
The former employee said that from the R & D level, the way to reduce costs was to platformize and reduce differences. But at Nezha, for different car models, multiple suppliers were selected, and each supplier's plan required a lot of manpower and energy to connect and evaluate.
This was also reflected in intelligent driving.
Some media quoted a Nezha person as saying that Nezha's 6 car models adopted the solutions of 6 self - driving manufacturers, and they were not compatible with each other. This not only invisibly increased the procurement cost but also increased the management cost. At the same time, the company also had a self - driving team of 1,300 people, which led to serious waste of funds.
This "repeated car - making" behavior at the product level might also involve relevant interests in other aspects.
Emptying and a Way Out?
A person familiar with the matter revealed to AI Lanmeihui that in the past, the marketing system suppliers of Nezha Automobile were basically controlled by Zhang Yong, the then CEO. The procurement price was 1.5 to 4 times higher than the normal price.
For example, at the end of December 2023, Nezha Automobile purchased information dissemination services through suppliers. For only 9 media, it cost nearly 1.5 million yuan in total. Among them, it cost 200,000 yuan just to purchase a single graphic and distribution of a certain automotive self - media.
The materials exclusively obtained by AI Lanmeihui further show that some of the media accounts with high - price placements are not mainstream authoritative institutions with credibility and influence in the industry. They are account owners with average traffic and limited dissemination scale, and are hardly heard of in the industry, which is completely inconsistent with such high placement costs.
This nearly 1.5 - million - yuan information dissemination project was just a brand promotion for Nezha Automobile's year - end review in 2023, and a lot of the content was the packaging of Zhang Yong himself. According to the person familiar with the matter, the average cost for Zhang Yong to be on the hot search once exceeded 2 million yuan, which was also several times higher than the normal market price.
Spending money lavishly on marketing was the norm for Nezha.