As of March 31, Soros' investment funds held 101,796,000 shares of Nio's assets classified as "NOTE" for a total value of $84.36 million.

George Soros' Soros Fund Management bought assets issued by Nio (NYSE: NIO, HKG: 9866) for the first time in the first quarter, demonstrating the US billionaire's interest in the Chinese electric vehicle company, even though these assets are not common shares.

As of the end of the first quarter, the fund held 31,900,000 Nio-issued assets classified as "NOTE 2/0," worth about $27,254,000, and 69,896,000 assets classified as "NOTE 0.500 percent 2/0 " valued at about $57,109,000.

The information was shown in Soros Fund Management's 13F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday, the first time the fund held assets related to Nio.

This means that as of March 31, the fund held a total of 101,796,000 Nio assets classified as "NOTE" with a total value of $84.36 million.

This is the first time we have seen assets such as "NOTE 2/0" in a company's 13F filing. We've also seen a few reports referring to these assets as shares of Nio, but apparently, that doesn't seem to be true, as they are worth an average of only about $0.83 each.

Nio's shares were trading at $14.31 as of Friday's close, and at about $20 at the end of March.

Judging from the names of these assets, CnEVPost guesses they may be convertible senior notes issued by Nio.

On January 3, Nio announced that it informed holders of its 4.50 percent convertible senior notes due in 2024 that they would have the right to request the company to repurchase all or a portion of such notes.

Convertible notes, also commonly known as convertible bonds, allow holders to convert into shares of a company for a period of time in the future.

Typically, a company will pay the holder principal and interest on convertible notes when they mature, if they do not convert them into shares.

On January 31, Nio announced that it completed the matter and none of the noteholders exercised their repurchase rights and no notes were surrendered for repurchase.

Soros Fund Management's latest 13F filing shows that it does not hold assets related to Nio's local peers Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV, HKG: 9868) or Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI, HKG: 2015).