At the end of 2017, a mysterious investor towed the beleaguered electric vehicle company Faraday Future out of a serious financial rut — mere weeks before it was set to completely crash and burn through its cash supply.
Now, as the reported $2B deal nears approval, the mysterious benefactor is revealed to be Season Smart Ltd., a British Virgin Islands-based investor.
But wait, there’s a twist
Hong Kong-based Evergrande Health has since acquired Season Smart, and will take over the FF investment commitment along with a 45% company stake.
This deal comes as a rare NOS-boost for Faraday Future, who unveiled their vision for EVs — the ultra-fast, ultra-luxurious FF 91 — to great fanfare during CES last year, but has been speeding down a dusty road of financial missteps ever since.
In 2017, FF was forced to kill its engine on the product line, and ultimately walk back the development of its $1B factory in Nevada.
You sure this is the car you wanna drift with, Evergrande?
So far, FF has received $800m of the $2B investment with the remaining $1.2B disbursed over the next 2 years — that is, IF they can hit the undisclosed goals laid out in the agreement.
What’s more, should Evergrande find reason to believe the company’s notorious CEO/main financier Jia Yueting “is unable to perform [his] duties” in managing the company, the voting shares that FF Top Holding controls will go to Evergrande.
Time to invest in some team bonding exercises
But, one of the company’s co-founders, Tony Nie, won’t be renewing his lease — leaving the other 2 co-founders, Jia and Senior VP Nick Sampson, to navigate the EV highways themselves.
And this isn’t the first time one of FF’s bigwigs has traded in their pink slip: Last year, reports of poor office culture caused a traffic jam of high-profile departures (including then-CFO Stefan Krause and head of HR Crystal Peterson) that cut their 1.5k-person workforce in half.
OK, if the head of HR is leaving, you know it’s bad…