LeEco, the Chinese company which dared to take on the likes of Netflix and Tesla and called Apple as “outdated” at the same time, was making quite a progress. But suddenly, the world of LeEco, earlier known as LeTV, crumbled as the company faced a number of setbacks. It was growing too fast without a solid financial foundation.

The company is now facing a number of lawsuits in its home country from various vendors, although the same has been going on for years now. In the latest development, Jingdong Judicial Auction listed 1,354 patents held by LeTV Information Technology (Beijing) Co. for judicial auction.

LeTV Trademark Auction

The listing had a starting price of 136,000 yuan (approximately $19,240) and the current bid for the trademarks has reached 113 million yuan. It began the bidding process on 29th June at 10:00 AM local time and the process was closed today, i.e. on 30th June at 10:00 AM local time.

The process seems to have attracted more than 90,000 people but only 105 signed up for the bidding. This first auction of the company’s assets and IP includes trademarks like “LeTV TV” and “LeTV Super TV” among others.

The auction process for the trademarks was based on the increased-price method where a reserved price is set and then each bid increases the price by at least 500 yuan (~$71). The competition among the bidders is fierce given that most bids were only a minute apart and the bid has been increased by 800 times compared to the reserved price.

Earlier this month, the auction of around 22.1 million shares of LeEco held by Jia Yueting, the company’s founder, took place on 13th June and 14th June. Despite over 14,000 people interested, none of them participated in the bidding process.

The auction price of the share was decided based on the average closing price of 20 trading days before the trading was suspended. With the price of 2.51 yuan (~$0.36) per share, the total comes down to 55.47 million yuan.

It’s noteworthy that the auction price almost doubles the price of the share from the 1.69 yuan per share cost on the last trading day before LeTV’s suspension. The company entered the delisting consolidation period on 5th June and thus, the LETV stock trading was suspended in China. By the end of 12th June, the company’s share price fell below 0.9 yuan (~$0.13) per share, bringing down the market value to 3.59 billion yuan.

(Via)