Baicheng
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Baicheng (百程旅行网） was a Beijing-based outbound travel services company, originally launched as Byecity in August 2000. The company specialized in visa processing - claiming a 99.8% success rate and processing over 400,000 visas in 2013 - plus holiday packages, hotel and flight reservations, car rentals and business tours for Chinese travelers going abroad. Founded by Song Zeng, a pioneer of China's outbound travel industry, Baicheng raised about $49 million in total, including a $20 million Series B led by Alibaba and China Broadband Capital and a $29 million (RMB 200 million) Series C from Qianhe Capital and Alibaba-backed Fliggy in July 2015. On February 28, 2020 the company announced it would wind up operations and prepare for liquidation as the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out outbound travel.
02 / Baicheng FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
The COVID-19 pandemic was the immediate trigger: China suspended outbound tours in January 2020, and Baicheng said it was severely impacted and lacked the cash flow to stay afloat. But the company was already financially weak - trade press reported it had faced financial troubles since the second half of 2019 and had not published financial results since delisting from the New Third Board in July 2019. The pandemic exposed that fragility: with zero revenue from its core visa and outbound-travel business and no cash reserves, the company announced on February 28, 2020 that it would wind up operations and prepare for liquidation.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Bankruptcy
Yicai Global reported an internal notice dated 29 February 2020: Beijing outbound-travel/visa OTA Baicheng (Alibaba-backed; NEEQ-listed) said it lacked funds to continue, and a shareholders' meeting decided to declare insolvency and wind up operations as COVID-19 halted overseas tourism.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
On February 28, 2020 Baicheng announced it would wind up operations and prepare for liquidation, saying the coronavirus outbreak had severely impacted the company and it lacked the cash flow to keep the business afloat.
- 02
An internal meeting for liquidation followed, as China kept its ban on outbound group tours in place.
- 03
The collapse followed earlier financial weakness: the company had faced financial troubles since the second half of 2019 and had not published financial results after delisting from the New Third Board in July 2019.
- 04
No reliable loss figure with a stated subject, period and accounting basis has been publicly documented.