Evergrande injects $853b into EV startup Faraday Future

Evergrande Health Industry Group, the Hong Kong-listed unit of Chinese billionaire Xu Jiayin's Evergrande Group, acquired a controlling 45 percent stake in Faraday Future for HK$6.75 billion ($853 million) through Hong Kong's Season Smart, the company said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Monday afternoon.

The California-based electric vehicle startup Faraday Future also announced on Monday it has confirmed $2 billion of equity funding upon approval of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Last year Season Smart took a 45 percent stake in a joint venture with struggling electric car maker Faraday Future following a $2 billion capital injection.

According to the filing, Evergrande will replace Season Smart as the biggest shareholder of Faraday Future, with a 45 percent stake. Faraday's original investors retain a combined 33 percent stake, with the remaining 22 percent of company equity to be distributed to company executives, according to the filing.

"FF welcomes Evergrande Health as a new strategic investor," Faraday Future said in an official press release on Monday. Faraday founder Jia Yueting, who goes by YT, will officially take a role as FF Global CEO, according to the release.

Faraday Future was founded in Los Angeles in 2014, with R&D centers and offices in Silicon Valley, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The company is poised to have product and service offerings integrating new energy, AI, internet and sharing, continuously transforming mobility as we know it.

FF 91, a full-size luxury crossover EV, is Faraday Future's first production vehicle and flagship model. FF calls it "a super car robot and a third internet living space."

With the injection from Evergrande Group, FF is better able to realize its dream of "breaking the boundaries" between the internet, IT, creative and auto industries. But the company still faces competitors in the EV industry, such as industry leader Tesla and Chinese new bloods Byton and NIO.

The automobile industry remains a strategic one for the national economy, the Evergande Group said according to a report from Guangzhou Daily. The company also announced it would explore high-tech industries at the start of next year, focusing on new energy vehicles, AI and robots.

Evergrande Group is a world top 500 enterprise focusing on real estate, while actively exploring the high-tech industry. In 2017, it had total assets of 1.76 trillion yuan ($269.28 billion), annual sales of 501 billion yuan, annual profit and taxes of 79 billion yuan, and 127,000 employees.