LeEco's CEO Jia Yueting Says Company Overstretched, Now Running Out of Cash (bloomberg.com) 37
LeEco is a giant conglomerate in China. The company offers a range of services -- from online streaming service, to smartphones, to TV, to electric cars. On top of that, the company has been aggressively expanding into different markets with India and the United States being the two notable ones. How does it make so much cash? You wonder. It doesn't actually, according to the CEO, who has informed the employees that the company is quickly running out of cash. An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg report: The billionaire chairman of China's LeEco has admitted his technology empire is running out of cash to sustain a headlong rush into businesses from electric cars to smartphones. In a lengthy letter to employees, company co-founder Jia Yueting apologized to shareholders and pledged to slash his income to 1 yuan (15 cents), slow LeEco's madcap pace of expansion, and move the company toward a more moderate phase of growth. LeEco is the umbrella holding company for a sprawling family of businesses that includes sports media, automobiles, smartphones and TVs. The company known for its LeTV streaming service has aggressively pursued funding and placed bets on new ventures, from an electric car plant in Nevada to a $2 billion acquisition of California TV maker Vizio Inc. "No company has had such an experience, a simultaneous time in ice and fire," Jia wrote in a letter, obtained by Bloomberg News, describing LeEco's rise and subsequent issues. "We blindly sped ahead, and our cash demand ballooned. We got over-extended in our global strategy. At the same time, our capital and resources were in fact limited."
And? (Score:2)
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That only applies to corporations who guarantees board seats to the former-government employees who have "retired".
Le Eco is Chinese. Former and CURRENT Government employees (via proxies like spouses or children) are guaranteed board seats for a cash infusion by Beijing...
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Ah, so you'd have flushed the U.S. auto industry down the toilet during the last recession. Approx 1.5 million Americans worked directly the auto industry. Another roughly 6 million jobs are connected to it. They generate about $200 billion in state and federal taxes. The auto industry paid most of the U.S. government money back, as did the banks.
So you'd whack them all on the alter of Ann Rand. Let's let cut the U.S. economy because some misguided theory which has no use for humans or their offspring.
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Ah, so you'd have flushed the U.S. auto industry down the toilet during the last recession. Approx 1.5 million Americans worked directly the auto industry. Another roughly 6 million jobs are connected to it. They generate about $200 billion in state and federal taxes. The auto industry paid most of the U.S. government money back, as did the banks.
So you'd whack them all on the alter of Ann Rand. Let's let cut the U.S. economy because some misguided theory which has no use for humans or their offspring.
Sure, I base all my real world decisions on science fiction books I liked as a kid. While we're at it, let's only have voting for people who do Federal Service.
people just don't get it (Score:2)
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Shareholders aren't idiots. They are in it for the money.
Stable stocks are only nice if they pay a good dividend. Tech stocks usually don't, which is why they attract short term investors who aren't interested in timeframes beyond the next earnings report.
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Public companies are all failures in making. You see, a company needs an owner, and only one. Collective ownership of means of production is like 10 men banging one woman in one hole at the same time.
Public companies are a commie thing, subversion agents planted to ruin economies of the free world.
Hopefully, he will sell FF to Apple (Score:3)
No doubt if another CHinese buys it, they will shut it down and move it back to CHina.
IOW, they will have simply picked up the IP from it.
Common (Score:3)
One of the most common causes of business failure is expanding too rapidly. You don't need an MBA to know that, a undergrad intro to business class would be enough.
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I'm fairly sure this is something that is actively untaught during the process of getting an MBA
Personal experience with Le people (Score:3, Informative)
Incompetent people with truckloads of cash, well just like any other company that managed to secure a dominant market position in China. In that case it is "Chinese soap operas on demand". My girlfriend was offered a "personal secretary" position in their Russian office. Amazingly, they appointed a Chinese C-level for their Russian office who does't speak any foreign language at all.
What do they want to push in Russia? Yes, what they are pushing are the same Chinese soap operas, but with computer translated Russian subtitles. They ran a ~50-70 people operation in Russia for close to a year, just to invite market entry consultants, make a single landing page, and do a 1 few weeks trial run of their Russian website.
This reminds me of a business story... (Score:2)
Editing (Score:2)
"How does it make so much cash? You wonder."
What I wonder is who the hell edits this stuff.
To paraphrase Monkey-Boy Ballmer, "Editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors! Editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors, editors!!"
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You are aware that editors don't actually edit and editing is the submitter's job?
Silly me, what was I thinking?
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Surely somebody else would be happy to buy it.