Ofo is back in the news in Singapore after axing its operations team in the city-state in February. This time, the Chinese bike-sharing company is said to have auctioned off 7,900 of its bikes stored at Bok Seng Logistics, 7,000 of which were still new, unassembled and packed in boxes, reported the local news portal SGSME.
The public sale took place on 1st April and attracted approximately 30 individuals, many of whom are from scrap metal recycling companies. Costa Rican investment group OSS Inversiones, the majority investor of Ofo competitor oBike, was apparently amongst those who turned up at the auction, according to SGSME. During the auction, OSS Inversiones’ highest bid was SGD 89,000, falling behind the unnamed winner’s bid of SGD 99,000.
Ofo has been so debt-laden that it had to silently vacate its Singapore office. The company reportedly still owes vendors at least SGD 700,000 for logistics services as well as several thousand dollars worth of transport and mobile phone expenses. It is also unable to return deposits to former Ofo users in Singapore.
Back in China, the firm is said to owe 11.7 million customers more than RMB 1.16 billion worth of deposits.
The amount raised through the auction is of no match to the debt Ofo has accrued, but it seems to have symbolically confirmed and completed Ofo’s exit from Singapore. Meanwhile, users are still waiting to be compensated for their deposits.
Editor: Nadine Freischlad