BEIJING, December 18 (TMTPost)— The U.S.-listed shares of Xpeng Inc. dived after it key investor Alibaba Group disclosed its plan to offload the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer.

Credit：Visual China

Xpeng’s American depository receipts (ADPs) dropped as much as 8.6% and settled around 7.5% lower on Friday. The same day saw a filling with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission  (SEC) said Alibaba’s subsidiary Taobao China Holding Limited plans to sell 25 million ADPs. Alibaba can cash out nearly US$400 million through the sale as the stake it offloaded was worth about US391 million, based on Xpeng ADPs’ closing price on Thursday.

As a long-term investor of Xpeng , Alibaba joined in multiple funding rounds of since the EV maker founded in 2014. The filling showed the stake Alibaba sold was acquired on September 12 2019, namely, an investment prior to Xpeng’s listing in the United States on August 27 2020.

The sale was “consistent with our capital management objectives“ and brought Alibaba’s holdings in Xpeng from 10.2% to 7.5%, an Alibaba spokesperson said in a statement. “We have a strategic relationship with XPeng, which is one of China’s leaders in electric vehicles. We believe in Xpeng’s prospects and look forward to continued cooperation with the company,” the person said.

Following the Xpeng played down Alibaba’s offloading.  the move is to implement a strategy to monetize investment as the company had communicated with analysts at its earnings call for the third quarter, instead of a view change, according to China’s state-owned newspaper the Securities Times. Alibaba will remain Xpeng’s second largest shareholder after the sale, and will continue in-depth strategic cooperation with the Guangzhou-based company on cloud computing and other sectors.

Xpeng stressed it has reached strategic partnership with Volkswagen and the German auto heavyweight is the company’s third largest shareholder currently. Xpeng added it now has more than RMB40 billion of cash and several billions of yuan of the positive free cash flow in the second half of this year, so the cash is abundant and cash flow has significantly improved. 

Volkswagen,the top 1 European automaker by revenue, sealed a framework agreement on strategic technical collaboration with Xpeng in July. The two parties will jointly develop two B-class battery electric vehicles (BEV) models for sale in the Chinese market under Volkswagen brand, leveraging respective core competencies and Xpeng’s full-stack technologies, from EV platform G9 to Connectivity and advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) software. The models are expected to start production in 2026. The parties will explore additional potential strategic cooperation in a number of areas, including collaboration on future EV platforms, software technologies and supply chain.

Volkswagen and Xpeng also reached a share purchase agreement for strategic minority investment the same month. Under the investment agreement, Volkswagen will spend about US$700 million to acquire Class A ordinary shares at US$15 per American depositary share. When the deal completes, Volkswagen is set to take an about 4.99% stakes in Xpeng and become the third largest shareholder, next to Xpeng’s CEO and cofounder He Xiaopeng and Alibaba Group. Volkswagen has entitled to appoint an observer at Xpeng’s board upon completion of the investment.

Xpeng last month posted sales turnaround with a double-digit increase despite widening loss. The revenue rose 25% year-over-year (YoY) to RMB8.53 billion (US$1.17 billion) in the quarter ended September 30, falling short of the analysts’ estimated RMB8.58 billion. The adjusted net loss  came to RMB3.89 billion, widening from RMB2.38 billion from the same quarter last year, while the net loss per share was RMB3.23, narrower than the expectation of RMB3.40. Xpeng delivered 40,008 vehicles that quarter with a 72.4% YoY growth. But gross margin stood at negative 2.7%, worse than the expected 2.86%, and the vehicle margin was negative 6.1%, compared 11.6% a year ago.

Xpeng said the YoY decrease in vehicle margin was due to the inventory write-downs related to the electric crossover G3i, with a negative impact of 2.9 percentage points on vehicle margin for the third quarter of 2023, increased sales promotions, and the expiry of new energy vehicle subsidies. Xpeng vehicle deliveries have grown for nine consecutive months and the free cash flow has substantially improved, commented the Co-President Hongdi Brian Gu. Gu expressed optimistic on the outlook. He said the new products and technology-driven cost controls are expected to result in notable improvements to the gross margin, and free cash flow could be even stronger in the fourth quarter, marking the beginning of its parth towards long-term scalable profitability.

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