EV maker Lotus Tech closes up modestly in Nasdaq debut after SPAC merger

NEW YORK :Shares of Lotus Abilities closed up 2 per cent of their Nasdaq debut on Friday, recouping earlier losses, after the luxury electric car maker completed its merger with a clean-check acquisition company backed by non-public equity firm L Catterton.

The American Depositary Shares, which began trading with the fresh ticker “LOT”, ended at $13.80 after falling as exiguous as $10.12. About 190,000 shares traded. The actual reason acquisition company (SPAC) closed at $13.51 on Thursday.

Lotus Abilities became once valued at about $7 billion within the deal with L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp (LCAA), the SPAC backed by L Catterton. It’s part of British sports actions car maker Lotus Community which in flip is owned collectively by Chinese automaker Geely and Malaysia’s Etika Automotive.

The itemizing came at a time when EV makers are facing scrutiny in capital markets. Rivian Automotive and Lucid Community tumbled on Thursday after their earning reports pointed to the affect of slowing EV ask on their ramp-up plans.

Lotus Abilities is headquartered within the central Chinese city of Wuhan and produces cars via a partnership with Geely. It designs, develops and sells luxury everyday life EVs underneath the British build Lotus founded in 1948.

“At this deadline, being in a position to secure admission to capital market via the IPO… is an acceleration for Lotus to elongate globally,” stated Qingfeng Feng, chief executive officer of Lotus Tech.

An much like other SPAC mergers, over 90 per cent of LCAA shareholders redeemed their shares, leaving the have faith’s account with roughly $11 million. Normally, a stock is inclined to volatility if easiest a shrimp amount of shares are publicly on hand.

Lotus Abilities has launched two EV models, in conjunction with its first fully electric sports actions utility vehicle, Eletre. The mannequin started provide in China in 2023 and followed within the UK and the European Union, the corporate stated. It’s looking ahead to to articulate cars within the U.S. later this year.

The corporate secured $880 million in financing forward of its merger with LCAA.

“We seen what these guys had been attempting to affect to it, truly constructing a global luxury industry, which is terribly quite a lot of from handsome a conventional EV company. And so we understanding that our partnership would be in a position to abet them affect that nicely,” stated Chinta Bhagat, Co-Chief Govt Officer of LCAA.