Bethel asks to move RMB 213m of bond money from castings into brake-by-wire capacity
The Chinese brake supplier asked to redirect the unspent remainder of a 2025 convertible bond's castings project into two new lines, one of them for 400,000 by-wire braking systems a year, after demand for aluminum castings slowed.
Wuhu Bethel Automotive Safety Systems published a proposal on October 30 to redirect the unspent balance of its aluminum castings project, RMB 213.2823 million as of September 30, into two newly created projects: a line for one million brake caliper assemblies a year and a line for 400,000 by-wire braking systems a year. The filing puts that balance at 7.61 percent of the 2025 convertible bond’s RMB 2.802 billion of total proceeds. The company’s board approved the change at a meeting on October 28, and the board resolution records a vote of nine in favor, none against and none abstaining.
The money had been earmarked for aluminum castings. The filing says demand for those products had slowed because downstream model development and production ramp-up schedules shifted, and that 1.5 million units of casting capacity have already been built. Of the redirected total, RMB 106.8223 million goes to the caliper line and the balance to the by-wire project, which carries a planned total investment of RMB 121.5 million including RMB 106.46 million of equipment purchase and installation. The company put the by-wire project’s after-tax internal rate of return at 27.32 percent with a payback period of 6.67 years, and the caliper project’s at 27.03 percent and 6.59 years.
Bethel described its by-wire braking product, WCBS, as a One-Box integrated design, and set out a platform history alongside the request: WCBS1.6 and WCBS2.1 completed mass-production design validation in the first half of 2026, while WCBS2.2, a fully domestically sourced platform, and WCBS2.1F, which integrates an air-suspension electronic damping control solenoid valve controller, each reached B-sample release. The filing names no customer for the new capacity and gives no figure for existing by-wire output. Both changes still require approval by a shareholders’ meeting and a bondholders’ meeting.