On December 30, 2021, Renault Brilliance's commercial vehicle joint venture in China, Renault Brilliance Gold Cup Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Renault Brilliance), officially announced bankruptcy reorganization. Following the announcement of the restructuring and withdrawal of Dongfeng Renault from the Chinese passenger car market on April 14, 2020, the Renault brand once again lost the Chinese market.
Renault Brilliance, which has been caught in the whirlpool of public opinion, ultimately failed to reverse the fate of bankruptcy. With the official approval of Renault Brilliance's bankruptcy restructuring application, Renault's layout in China has become increasingly confusing.
01
In the heat of the water, the marriage of Renault
Let's pull the timeline back 4 years. On December 15, 2017, after a year and a half of negotiations, Renault agreed to acquire a 49% stake in Shenyang Brilliance Jinbei Automobile Co., Ltd. in the hands of Brilliance China for 1 yuan in cash. After the official completion of the share change, Brilliance Automobile and the Renault brand jointly established and managed Renault Brilliance Jinbei Co., Ltd. with 51:49 shares, and produced and sold light commercial vehicles under the three brands of Jinbei, Renault and Huasong.
At that time, brilliance gold cup can be described as in the "deep water", not only facing huge losses, but also accumulated debt of more than 1 billion yuan. Brilliance "sold" to Renault at a symbolic price of 1 yuan, hoping that Renault could provide more funds and technology to achieve a turnaround.
But since then, Renault Brilliance's development has not been as good as imagined. Since 2018, Renault Brilliance's sales have declined year by year. By 2020, Renault Brilliance will sell only 23,000 units, down 42.8% year-on-year compared to 2019. It should be clear that the market ownership of Jinbei buses exceeds 1 million, and its peak market share exceeds 75%, ranking first in the sales list of China's commercial vehicle market for 19 consecutive years, and is undoubtedly the first brand of light passengers in China.
02
Exposed to suspension of pay and arrears of payments to suppliers
In fact, the bankruptcy reorganization of Renault Brilliance has long been released with relevant signals. According to relevant insiders, starting from December 20, 2021, Renault Brilliance has suspended the payment of wages, only paying medical insurance for employees, and the rest of the insurance and provident fund have been suspended; the reimbursement of related heating fees has been put on the agenda, and the results will await further notice.
Renault Brilliance employees told the media that at present, a number of projects within Renault Brilliance have been stopped, and the beginning of December 2021 has begun to take a holiday, employees can voluntarily apply for resignation, basically can formally terminate the labor contract within 1-2 days, and the departing employees need to communicate with the supervisor to complete the work handover. At present, Renault Brilliance French CEO Sgomei has also left China and has not resigned.
In addition, there are a number of suppliers said that Renault Brilliance has been in arrears for several months, and some suppliers have sued Renault Brilliance in court and have won the lawsuit, but Renault Brilliance still has not released the news. "Although the lawsuit has been won, there is no official statement for the time being. Now it is time to see if Renault Brilliance appeals, and if there is no appeal, we are prepared to apply for further enforcement. A supplier leader said.
03
Why is 1+1 less than 2?
According to the official plan at the time, in 2023, Renault Brilliance will launch at least 5 core competitive models, and will also enter the emerging electric light bus market. However, since the establishment of the joint venture company, the introduction speed of Renault Brilliance's products has been quite slow, and the introduction of Renault models has also been delayed. Until November 2020, a redesigned model, Jinbei Haishi King, was launched, and before that, it was still desperately "eating the old book" and relying on the product line of Jinbei to support it.
Brother Reel checked the product introduction on The official website of Renault Brilliance, and the Renault MASTER, Traffic and other models originally scheduled to be introduced were listed. "It was meant to come in, but because the emission standards of these new cars did not meet domestic regulations, the two sides did not agree to redevelop, and eventually they were stillborn." Renault Brilliance internal employees told the media, "I thought they would bring advanced production technology and equipment and management models overseas, but in fact they didn't bring anything." ”
A big reason why 1+1 gets results less than 2 is that the two companies are forced to "fight their own battles". Relevant data show that as of August 13, 2020, the total amount of expected liabilities of 12 companies, including Brilliance Group, exceeded 61.9 billion yuan and were insolvent. In this context, brilliance group is difficult to provide corresponding financial and other support for Renault Brilliance, which lost 8.05 billion euros (about 63 billion yuan) in 2020, the largest annual loss since the establishment of the company. Both are difficult to protect themselves, and who has the energy to manage the "eldest child of the marriage"?
04
Where does Renault go from here?
In the past, Renault was a powerful group in China with four joint ventures of Dongfeng Renault, Brilliance Renault, EasyJet and Jiangling Renault, but now only EasyJet and Jiangling Renault are shivering in the cold wind of the car market. Specific to the model, Jiangling Renault has only launched one model at present - Yi. Judging from the recently released test drive report, many media teachers have praised the product strength of this model.
But Renault doesn't seem content with just "leaning" on the Jiangling Group. On August 9, 2021, Renault and Geely signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a long-term partnership. In China, the two parties will jointly develop Renault brand hybrid models based on Geely Holdings' platform technology, and in South Korea, the two parties will jointly develop energy-saving models suitable for the Korean market based on the Lynk & Co energy-saving platform.
Obviously, Renault wants to use Geely's existing platform to build cars, further reduce production costs, and develop products that are more in line with the Chinese market; Geely can further share the cost of developing the platform, while absorbing the technology and production models brought by Renault from overseas. For both, it is a win-win cooperation.
Isn't it familiar to look at? Isn't this the brand vision of Brilliance and Renault when they announced their "marriage"? However, Jiangling is much more reliable than Brilliance in the field of commercial vehicles, and Geely is also rising in the field of passenger cars. Will it be the next "Renault Brilliance" or the next "BMW Brilliance"? We'll see.
In the context of repeated epidemics, chip supply shortages and rising raw material prices, Renault Brilliance finally ended in the last two days of 2021. Brilliance's cooperation with Renault failed, which is also a good "negative textbook" for the Chinese auto market. It is worth mentioning that on January 1, 2022, the joint venture share ratio restriction policy officially withdrew from the historical stage. For Renault, whether it is willing to embrace Chinese consumers and how to gain a greater voice in the joint venture is the most important issue to pay attention to.