A Chinese court has ruled that bike-sharing startup Ofo, once valued at upwards of $2 billion, has no ability to pay its massive debts to either suppliers and users, adding another chapter to a cautionary tale for investors in China’s frothy startup sector.
中国一家法院裁定曾经市值超过20亿美元的共享单车公司ofo无能力向供应商和用户偿还巨额债务,这又向中国泡沫创业板块的投资者敲响了警钟。

Ofo “has basically no assets” and therefore cannot repay Tianjin Fuji-Ta Bicycle, a supplier that sued the operator of the bike-share company this year to recover the roughly $36 million it was owed, a court in the city of Tianjin ruled on Monday (June 17).
天津市一家法院周一(6月17日)做出判决,ofo“基本上没有资产”,因此无法偿还欠天津富士达自行车公司的债务。该供应商今年起诉了这家共享单车运营商,想要追回约3600万美元的欠款。

It noted that the company’s bank accounts either have a zero balance or are frozen, and that it had no property, cars, or investment assets either, in a verdict first reported by China Securities Journal, part of the state-run Xinhua news group.
在隶属于国有新华新闻集团的《中国证券报》最先发表的一份判决中,法院称该公司的银行账户要么没有余额,要么被冻结,公司也没有不动产、汽车或投资资产。

图片来源:视觉中国

Ofo, founded five years ago, once rode high on the expectation that more and more people in China would start to use its dockless bikes to cover the first or last mile of their commutes.
五年前成立的ofo曾满心期待中国会有越来越多的人通勤全程使用其无桩自行车。

The company raised more than $2.2 billion in eight rounds between 2015 to 2018, with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group and ride-hailing operator Didi Chuxing among its major investors.
该公司于2015年-2018年进行的8轮融资总额超过22亿美元,中国电商巨头阿里巴巴集团和打车服务运营商滴滴出行都是主要投资者。

Over the same period, Mobike, Ofo’s biggest rival, also received more than $900 million, as the bike-share sector took off, even inspiring a host of other “sharing” businesses.
随着共享单车业务的发展,ofo最大的对手摩拜单车同期的融资总额也超过了9亿美元,这甚至还激励了其他一些“共享”业务的发展。

Bike-share companies placed scores of bicycles across Chinese cities, which users could rent for a small deposit that started at 99 yuan ($14.3) and an even smaller hourly charge.
共享单车公司在中国各大城市投放了数十辆单车,使用者租用单车的押金最低99元(合14.3美元),每小时的使用费用更低。

But the bikes faced vandalism and theft, and were left in untidy piles that city authorities had to deal with. Even more problematic was how they could make money by charging just a few cents per ride, while shelling out for hundreds of thousands of bikes.
但这些自行车遭到了破坏和盗窃,还乱停乱放,需要城市行政部门出面管理。更严重的是公司斥资买来了成千上万辆自行车,但骑一次只要几美分,这怎么能赚到钱呢?

By 2017, some showed signs of faltering.
截止2017年一些城市的单车业务已步履维艰。

 

翻译:菲菲