An investor group led by Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li seems to have won the bidding for Fisker’s DOE loan, Reuters reported, citing a confidential source. The DOE plans to publicly announce the winner once the sale was closed. Fisker owes the DOE $168 million, but bids at Friday’s auction started at $30 million.

Buying the loan would allow Li, the son of Asia’s richest man and an early Fisker investor, to avoid a bankruptcy filing, and to restructure Fisker unencumbered by the obligations of the DOE funds, according to Reuters. However, the DOE did require bidders to include a plan to promote the manufacturing and engineering of green cars in the US.

The feds resorted to the auction “after exhausting any realistic possibility for a sale” that would allow the DOE to recoup its investment in full.

Source: Reuters, Green Car Reports