The China Merchants Bank recently froze assets of LeEco’s Chairman and some of LeEco’s affiliates, and the company’s former CEO just released a statement regarding the whole situation. Jia Yueting, LeEco’s Chairman and also the company’s founder, shared a post via WeChat, in which he pledged to take full responsibility for the current situation, not only the issue with some of the company’s assets which we’ve mentioned at the beginning, but also the company’s financial woes in general.
Mr. Yueting promised that he will pay back LeEco’s debts, and that he won’t abandon its ambitious electric vehicle project that we’ve been hearing much about. “Please give LeEco some time, please give LeEco car some time, we will pay back creditors, suppliers and any other debts,” said Mr. Yueting in his post. Jia Yueting actually resigned as the company’s CEO a while back, though he is still LeEco’s executive director and the largest shareholder. In hist post, Mr. Yueting said that he resigned as the company’s CEO because that’s what was best for the company. He believes that his resignation will make the FF91 (Faraday Future) electric car go into production sooner, and that it will benefit LeEco in general. In addition to all that, Mr. Yueting said that it’s his dream to ‘revolutionize the auto industry’, and that he will stick to it.
For those of you who missed yesterday’s news, the China Merchants Bank froze $182 of assets owned by Mr. Yueting, which only deepened LeEco’s recent troubles. LeEco raised a lot of money since 2015, around $6 billion, and it seems like the company made a couple of wrong turns along the way. LeEco’s overexpansion is definitely a part of the problem, as the company probably should not have started its adventure in the US, at least not in the way they did. Such issues are probably the reason why Xiaomi is still not selling its smartphone in the US, and is taking things really slow. LeEco is a huge company, and even though they’re facing some serious financial problems at the moment, the company will probably find its way out of this, the only question is, when will that happen. It will also be interesting to see in what shape will LeEco be once they find a way out of this financial hole it is currently in.