Shenzhen Royole Technologies Files for Bankruptcy Liquidation
TapTechNews June 9th news, the Intermediate People's Court of Shenzhen City released an announcement on June 6th, stating that it has accepted the bankruptcy liquidation case of Shenzhen Royole Technologies Co., Ltd. and has designated the administrator.
According to the announcement, the Intermediate People's Court of Shenzhen City had ruled on May 15th, 2024 to accept the bankruptcy liquidation case of Royole Technologies, and designated Guangdong Huashang Law Firm as the administrator of Royole Technologies. The creditors of Royole Technologies should declare their claims to the company's administrator before August 30th, 2024. If not declared within the above time limit, they can supplement the declaration before the final distribution of bankruptcy property, but have no right to request a supplementary distribution for the previously conducted distribution, and at the same time have to bear the cost incurred for examining and confirming the supplementary declared claim. Those who do not declare claims cannot exercise rights according to the procedures stipulated in the bankruptcy law. The announcement stated that the debtors or property holders of Royole Technologies should pay off debts or deliver properties to Royole Technologies' administrator. The Intermediate People's Court of Shenzhen City will hold the first creditors' meeting on September 13th, 2024. Creditors who have declared claims in accordance with the law have the right to participate in the creditors' meeting.
Royole Technologies was once a unicorn enterprise in the flexible display field, founded in 2012 by Liu Zihong and related parties. Royole Technologies once launched the world's first foldable phone - FlexPai in 2018. Since its establishment, the company has obtained multiple rounds of financing and has become one of the fastest-growing unicorns in the world. After completing the F-round financing in May 2020, the company's valuation even reached 6 billion US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 43.525 billion RMB).
In 2020, after the company completed the listing tutoring work, Royole Technologies officially launched a sprint to the STAR Market, but in February 2021, Royole Technologies voluntarily withdrew its listing application. In this regard, Liu Shuwei, an independent director of Royole Technologies, once said that the main reason is that there is a situation of three types of shareholders directly in the shareholder structure of the company. This prospectus also exposed the company's real financial situation. From 2017 to the first half of 2020, the company achieved 500 million RMB in revenue, but the net loss exceeded 3 billion RMB. Soon after, Royole Technologies was rumored to be in a financial困境 and was repeatedly exposed to salary arrears.
In March this year, there was a bankruptcy rumor of Royole Technologies in the market. In response, Royole Technologies issued a statement on April 1st, stating that the company has never actively applied for bankruptcy and is not in the bankruptcy process, and the enterprise is still operating. The bankruptcy rumor originated from an individual resigned employee who filed a bankruptcy review application in the name of an option settlement dispute.
On April 24th, 2024, the bankruptcy review hearing of Royole Technologies was held in the Intermediate People's Court of Shenzhen City. According to the statistics of the employee side, more than 300 current and resigned employees of Royole were owed about 60 million RMB in wages in total, plus the equity promised by the company before, which amounts to more than 100 million RMB in total.
Currently, in the equity structure of Royo le Technologies, Liu Zihong controls 38.6085% and is the largest shareholder.