He Xiaopeng, the founder and CEO of Chinese smart electric vehicle (EV) maker Xpeng Motors, announced he was buying back 2.2 million of the firm’s American depositary shares, as its new SUV launch boosts confidence for future profitability after months of downward pressure on the stock, reports the South China Morning Post.
He bought the shares at an average price of $13.58 apiece, the company said in a statement filed to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Sunday. The company, which went public in both Hong Kong and New York in 2020, has seen its shares fall more than 60% in both markets since late June.
“Xpeng’s current sales have hit a bottleneck, and it is difficult to further increase its sales due to the increase in competitors,” Wang De’an, an analyst at Ping An Securities, wrote in a report on Friday. Due to lower car prices, its profitability was also weaker than domestic competitors Nio and Li Auto, the report said.