Guangdong Titanium Energy Co., Ltd. (Guangdong Titanium) announced on June 16 that the company’s 100% equity in Zhuhai Guangtong Automobile Co., Ltd. (RMB 1.806 billion) has been frozen by the court. Guangdong Titanium is a subsidiary of Gree Electric Appliances (Zhuhai Gree Electric Appliance Co., Ltd.).
According to the Tianyancha information, the 18.06 billion yuan equity held by Guangdong Titanium in Zhuhai Guangtong Automobile Co., Ltd. has been frozen for a period from June 4, 2025, to June 3, 2028, for three years, with Guangdong Zhuhai Intermediate People’s Court as the executing court.
Not only has the equity been frozen by the court, but Guangdong Titanium has also been facing financial difficulties. According to Ye Ma Finance on June 17, as of June 2024, its total debt has reached 24.786 billion yuan, with a net loss of 1.905 billion yuan in the first half of the year, and the asset-liability ratio approaching 100%.
Guangdong Titanium is a comprehensive new energy industry group integrating core materials for lithium batteries, batteries, electric motor controls, charging equipment, intelligent energy storage systems, new energy vehicle research and development, production, sales, and secondary utilization of power batteries. The company owns two major brands, Guangtong Automobile and Aoti Energy Storage.
Regarding the reason for the equity freeze, Guangdong Titanium explained that the judicial freeze originated from the former actual controller and legal representative of the company, Wei Yincang, who, without the approval of the board of directors as stipulated in the company’s articles of association, illegally used the company seal in December 2015 on a supplementary agreement for capital increase with Sun Life Insurance Co., Ltd.
Prior to this, the Zhuhai Intermediate People’s Court had already frozen three batches of equity of Guangdong Titanium, with the freeze period from January 14, 2025, to January 13, 2028, making this announcement the fourth freeze. In 2024, the company had 10 related freeze announcements. Data from the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System shows that Guangdong Titanium New Energy is involved in 17 legal disputes, with 15 related to sales contract disputes.
Public records show that as of August 31, 2021, Gree Electric Appliances controlled 47.93% of the voting rights, making Yincang a subsidiary.
On November 9, Yincang New Energy was renamed Guangdong Titanium New Energy, as shown on Qi Cha Cha, a platform previously acquired by Gree Electric Appliances.
Nine years ago, Gree Electric Appliances’ proposal to acquire Zhuhai Yincang for 13 billion was rejected by minority shareholders. Dong Mingzhu, Chairman of Zhuhai Gree Electric Appliances Co., Ltd., subsequently personally invested and became the second largest shareholder. In 2016, Dong Mingzhu stated, “I bet all my assets!” By 2021, Gree Electric Appliances bypassed the shareholders’ meeting and acquired Yincang shares through judicial auction.
Senior industry economist Yang Zhenpeng commented that from the perspective of whether the investment can be profitable, this investment is indeed relatively unsuccessful. Guangdong Titanium originally had many financial holes and bad debts. Although Gree holds Guangdong Titanium, the historical debt holes of Guangdong Titanium have not been fully resolved. In addition, Guangdong Titanium’s technology in new energy electric vehicles does not have a significant differentiation advantage, leading to continuous losses in recent years. Moreover, Guangdong Titanium’s new energy battery technology is not a mainstream technology, lacking advantages in market competition. Therefore, the future development prospects of Guangdong Titanium are not clear.