Lotus About to Be Listed on NASDAQ after Strategic Merger
The British car manufacturer Lotus is already owned by Geely, and now the company has announced it will merge with L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp., which is a SPAC or special acquisition company.The combined company is expected to keep the name of Lotus Technology Inc., with an estimated combined enterprise value of approximately $5.4 billion.Geely and other current Lotus owners are expected to retain their interests in the merged entity and hold a combined 89.7 percent. Ordinary shares for Lotus are expected to be listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “LOT” after the IPO.
Lotus is going public, yet on the surface little will change: Parent company Geely and its co-owners are expected to retain an 89.7 percent majority share of the company. Ordinary shares for Lotus are expected to be listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol “LOT” after the IPO. Interestingly, the new acquisition company, or SPAC, that’s buying in to Lotus is associated with Bernard Arnault and his France-based luxury goods giant LVMH, which owns companies that make everything from champagne to haute couture clothing.
New Feel, Same Name
After the deal goes through with the special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp., Lotus is expected to retain its name “Lotus Technology Inc.” with a new enterprise evaluation of roughly $5.4 billion. That evaluation takes into account an estimated $288 million in cash from Catterton’s trust account (assuming none of that firm’s public shareholders elect to redeem their shares), according to a release from Lotus.
Eletre SUV Plans Look to Be on Track
Geely CEO Qingfeng Feng will continue to helm the ship, and production plans do not seem to have changed. When we asked Lotus about how the merger will affect short- and long-term production plans, we were directed to the official release here. As things stand, the Eletre SUV is still expected to begin delivery in China in the first quarter of this year, and in the U.K. and Europe later in the year. It seems the U.S. and the rest of the world will need to sit patient, with Lotus still planning global delivery in 2024.
The push to go public is part of a larger narrative between Lotus and Geely trying to improve the company’s reach on a global scale. To that end, prospects seem high for the British outfit as it heads public. Managing director Matt Windle told us in December that Lotus received more than 10,000 orders for its new Emira, with over a third of those sales coming stateside. On top of that, in the span between Goodwood 2021, when the Emira launched, and Goodwood 2022, Lotus sold more cars than it had in the previous six years combined.
A Colorful History of Ownership
Lotus has changed hands a few times since Colin Chapman founded it in 1952. Following Chapman’s death, the company teetered on the edge of bankruptcy before being purchased by General Motors and Toyota. The company was eventually sold to the Italian businessman Romano Artioli who also owned Bugatti at the time.
In 2017, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group (more commonly known as Geely) purchased a 51 percent stake in Lotus. In the years since, Geely has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into bringing Lotus into the modern era of car manufacturing.
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