On February 28th, Polar Star Motors announced that it had received $950 million in external financing. The financing of Jixing Automobile this time is a three-year loan, jointly provided by a consortium of 12 domestic and foreign banks, including BNP Paribas, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered Bank, Bank of Spain, HSBC, and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.
As of December 31, 2023, the cash on the balance sheet of Jixing Automobile was approximately $750 million. Jixing Automobile stated that this financing is beneficial to support Jixing Automobile's next stage of development.
Polestar is a global high-performance electric vehicle brand jointly developed by Volvo and Geely in 2017. Currently, the models on sale include Polestar 2, Polestar 3, and Polestar 4. Given that the Chinese market is the world's largest new energy vehicle market, with a global market share of over two-thirds, since last year, Polestar Motors has been vigorously developing the Chinese market.
In June last year, Xingji Meizu and Jixing Automobile, which were actually controlled by Li Shufu, the Chairman of Geely Holding Group, announced the establishment of a new joint venture company in China - Jixing Technology, with a shareholding ratio of 51% and 49% respectively.
The new joint venture will not only be responsible for the sales, services and channels of Polar Star cars in the Chinese Mainland market, but also will create a car engine system to meet the intelligent needs of domestic consumers and a variety of terminal products other than electric vehicles, such as smart phones.
Since then, the layout of Polestar Motors in the Chinese market has become increasingly fast. Jixing Motors will also launch two new SUV models worldwide, among which the performance GT concept car Jixing 5 will be launched in 2024.
It is reported that Jixing Automobile is expected to achieve rapid growth in both sales and profits in the second half of this year, and will achieve cash flow balance in 2025, with an annual sales target of 150000 vehicles.
At the same time, a brand new equity structure for Polestar Motors is also taking shape. In early February of this year, Volvo announced that while releasing its main financial data for 2023, the company was evaluating potential adjustments to its stake in Polestar, including distributing shares to shareholders. Geely Sweden Holdings, a subsidiary of Geely Holdings, is the main transferee.
According to a reporter from First Financial News, after the completion of the above-mentioned equity change, Geely Sweden Holdings will become the second largest shareholder of Polestar Automobile, while Volvo will continue to hold 18% of the shares. Geely Holdings will continue to fully support the future development of the Polestar brand in terms of operations and finance, expanding synergies in basic technology, supply chain, manufacturing, and other areas. Volvo will continue to form strategic partnerships with Polestar in research and development, manufacturing, after-sales, and commercial areas.
Li Donghui, CEO of Geely Holding Group and member of the board of directors of Jixing Motors, publicly stated that Geely Holding will hold shares in Jixing Motors for the long term and participate in Jixing Motors' future financing plans in a timely manner.