Tesla rival Lucid Motors to go general public in $11.8 billion blank-test merger

(Reuters) – Luxurious electric powered auto maker Lucid Motors on Monday agreed to go community by merging with blank-examine agency Churchill Capital IV Corp in a deal that valued the put together company at $11.75 billion.

Lucid, run by an ex-Tesla engineer, is the most current agency to faucet the preliminary public giving current market, with traders speeding into the EV sector, spurred by the rise of Tesla Inc and with emissions polices toughening in Europe and in other places.

Other distinguished players in the sector went general public through mergers with so-termed distinctive intent acquisition corporations (SPACs) final calendar year. When some bargains this kind of as Fisker have delivered very well, others these types of as Nikola have provided up shorter-time period gains.

The publicly traded shares of CCIV fell nearly a third to $40.35 in volatile extended investing, offering the merged company a industry capitalization of about $64 billion. By comparison, Common Motors Co is worthy of about $76 billion.

Lucid mentioned it is on keep track of to commence manufacturing and deliveries in North The usa in the 2nd 50 percent of this calendar year with Lucid Air, its very first luxury sedan. It experienced beforehand mentioned it prepared to get started its deliveries in spring of 2021.

Lucid, which programs to build autos at its manufacturing unit in Arizona, aims to deliver 20,000 autos in 2022 and 251,000 in 2026 by including other versions like an electrical sport utility auto.

With a commencing price tag of $77,400, the sedan is slated to be the 1st to realize a 500-mile (805 km) driving range.

Following Lucid priced its sedan, Tesla main Elon Musk announced a value cut to its flagship Model S sedan. “The gauntlet has been thrown down!” he tweeted.

CCIV, which is backed by Wall Avenue dealmaker and former Citigroup banker Michael Klein, and new non-public traders are getting shares at different price ranges, with the newer personal traders shelling out a high quality.

The offer with CCIV consists of a non-public financial commitment of $2.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment decision Fund, cash managed by BlackRock and some others.

(Reporting by Niket Nishant, Shariq Khan and Sohini Podder in Bengaluru and Greg Roumeliotis in New York Additional reporting by Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco Creating by Subrat Patnaik Editing by Stephen Coates)