LeEco’s new name fails to shed old woes

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Leshi, the publicly traded arm of financially troubled tech giant LeEco, is planning to rebrand the company as “New Leshi," in a bid for a fresh start following the step-down of its over-ambitious founder Jia Yueting.

However some believe simply adding the word “new” before its name may not be enough to banish a year-long reputation as a company that went over the top with extravagant spending and expansion, leaving a trail of creditors in its wake.

The video hosting arm Leshi is striving to turn over a new leaf less than three months after new investor, real estate tycoon Sun Hongbin, replaced Jia as chairman of the listed firm.

The name change will not affect existing contracts and agreements, Leshi stated in a bourse announcement published Wednesday evening pledging that its obligations to unpaid parties remain intact.

“Be it the new Leshi or old, a name won’t do much good in whitewashing its past unless it first settles its bills,” prominent technology blogger Ge Jia tells CGTN. “For the time being, the alteration merely serves as a divide, roping off Jia’s reign from an era under new decision makers.”

The decision to retain the "LeShi" brand despite a gesture to move on shows that the company still sees value in the original brand, a name that took more than a decade to establish.

Founder Jia Yueting has resigned from his executive role at the company and is now devoted to building an electric car. Reports say he is currently in the US and has not set foot on Chinese mainland since his resignation‍.

The name eventually became known across China and beyond, and in 2015, the giant which spawned into a smartphone maker, electric vehicle builder and sports broadcasting company from the online video hosting site rebranded as LeEco. It was known as an innovator and later an empire embroiled in a cash crunch, spreading itself too thin with unrealistic aspirations.

One reason the company has chosen to keep the name could be that the television-making branch, one of the few potentially profitable areas of the business, is also known as LeShi, a unit built by LeShi’s current CEO Liang Jun.

“He’s very proud of the brand, it's likely why they have decided to keep the name instead of rebranding entirely,” says a person familiar with the matter speaking in condition of anonymity.

Industry observers such as Ge agree that the name LeShi is still a valuable one to small investors and consumers, and still enjoys reputation as a forward-looking technology company despite its financial woes and loss of trust among institutional investors.

But the road to putting the past behind for LeShi may be long. “You’d have to allow three to five years, before people disassociate the New Leshi with the old.”