Shares of Nio (NYSE:NIO) stock are in the red today following the release of a short report by Grizzly Research. The report alleges that Nio has been inflating its revenue and net income through its battery asset management company, Wuhan Weineng.
Weineng was established as a joint venture between Nio and Contemporary Amperex Technology in 2020. The company manages and collects Nio’s subscription revenue for its battery swap and battery-as-a-service (BaaS) strategies. Grizzly accuses Nio of flooding Weineng with “up to extra 21,053 batteries (worth ~1,147M RMB) to boost its numbers.”
For the nine months ended September 2021, Grizzly believes that the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) company overstated revenue and net income by approximately 10% and 95%, respectively. The short firm also believes Nio’s net loss “should be 95% higher” for that same period. Grizzly says Weineng has been immediately recognizing lifetime subscription revenue instead of accruing it out over a seven-year period, the estimated average subscription duration.
Today, Nio came out and publicly denied the details of the report.
NIO Stock: Nio Responds to Grizzly’s Allegations
Nio explained the following in a press release:
“The report is without merit and contains numerous errors, unsupported speculations and misleading conclusions and interpretations regarding information relating to the Company. The Company’s board of directors, including the audit committee, is reviewing the allegations and considering the appropriate course of action to protect the interests of all shareholders.”
The company also said it will make “additional disclosures” in “due course” in response to the allegations.
On top of the Weineng claims, the short report also contains information about conflicts of interest among Nio executives. For example, Grizzly believes CEO William Li has improperly loaned out shares from the NIO Users Trust. The trust was formed to give shareholders greater governance over the company. Grizzly says Li loaned out 50 million shares from the trust to UBS (NYSE:UBS) as part of a personal loan. Since then, NIO stock has declined by more than 50%.
As a result, Grizzly says shareholders have become “unknowingly exposed” to the risk of a margin call. Furthermore, the firm notes that Weineng’s “top two executives” also serve as Nio’s Vice President and Battery Operating Executive Manager.
On the date of publication, Eddie Pan did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
