Lucid Motors will become a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange in a deal that will leave the electric vehicle startup with $ 4.4 billion in cash. The California startup, which is majority owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, plans to start shipping its first luxury electric vehicle – the 500-mile Air sedan – later this year. An electric SUV is scheduled to follow in 2023.
Like many other startups in the automotive space did last year, Lucid Motors is skipping the traditional path to becoming a publicly traded company and instead is merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Specifically, Lucid Motors is merging with Churchill Capital Corp IV, which is already listed on the NYSE. Bloomberg reported for the first time that Lucid Motors and Churchill – which is managed by investor Michael Klein, who has engineered deals for Saudi Arabia in the past – were in talks in January.
Approximately $ 2.1 billion of that money will come from Churchill. About $ 2.5 billion will come from a new round of financing concurrently competing with the merger, which is anchored by Saudi Arabia, but includes BlackRock, Fidelity Management and others. The deal values Lucid Motors at $ 24 billion.
Led by Peter Rawlinson, a former Tesla engineer who helped bring the Model S to life, Lucid Motors was founded in 2007 as Atieva. It was initially focused on battery technology, but finally turned into an electric vehicle startup a few years ago. Since then, it has grown to more than 2,000 employees and has started construction on a $ 700 million plant in Arizona, where Air will be built.
Under development…