The electric car manufacturer Fisker was floated on the stock exchange on Friday as part of a SPAC reverse mega.
The company has no revenues and will have no product for sale until 2022.
In an interview, the company’s CEO went on the offensive, saying that it was an automotive company built for the future.
Fisker (NYSE: FSR) is a manufacturer of electric vehicles, which were traded for the first time on Friday in a public market. The IPO was part of a growing wave of reverse mergers with special purpose vehicles (SPACs) that have dominated the markets in recent months.
Details of the IPO
Fisker was first traded on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday as part of a SPAC reverse merger with Spartan Energy Acquisition (NYSE: SPAQ). Fisker will raise $1 billion through the IPO process and use the funds to manufacture its first product, the Fisker Ocean electric SUV.
Fisker currently has no working products and is in the pre-investment phase. On Friday, Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker was a guest on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” to argue why investors should bother thinking about a company that is still two years away from launching a product.
Would you like to read about other SPAC deals in 2020? Here is a January report describing the purchase of Swiss payment traffic company Global Blue by Far Point Acquisition in a $2.6 billion deal.
Size of the market
There are less than 2 million electric vehicles sold worldwide, but the market size could be as large as 80 million vehicles, Fisker said. The market is currently experiencing a gradual increase in demand, but will “explode” in 2022 or 2023.
Fisker, the former President and CEO of BMW Designworks USA, said the company was very transparent about its multi-year progress. The company has completed the production of prototypes of its vehicle and is well on track to show the world its final vehicle next May.
The future of an automotive company
The company is focused on creating the “future of a car company” today, offering consumers a completely new digital experience, said the CEO. On the manufacturing side, Fisker has partnered with Magna, the third largest automotive supplier.
The partnership with Magna eliminates all the “pain” associated with producing a car in-house, he said. It also means that Fisker can remain an easy company to focus on what it does best: Next-generation software and design and creating a superior customer experience.
The partnership provides for the production of 50,000 vehicles in the first year, and this will help Fisker generate positive cash flow. In return, Magna will acquire a 6% stake in Fisker.
“This is a completely different business model from any other out there,” he said.
In reality, it takes about two years to make a car and the process cannot be accelerated, he said. But it’s easier today to build a car from scratch than it was ten years ago because carmakers now have access to resources that were not there before, such as proven battery manufacturers with years of experience.
