Henrik Fisher, Founder of Electric Car Startup, Fisker plans NYSE listing to reinvent the auto business. Henrik Fisker plans on making a significant entrance in the auto industry by arranging new financing and a reverse merger that will get new shares of his LA-based electric vehicle startup, trading on the NY Stock Exchange.
The well-known auto designer said Fisker Inc will come to the market with a new “asset-light” business model which will rely on partnerships, shared manufacturing, and leased products.
Sparta Energy Acquisition Corp is a special purpose acquisition company connected to Apollo Global Management forming a combination that will result in Fisker’s public listing during the fourth quarter of 2020. The merger will place Fisker around 2.9 billion on a pro forma. The news was announced just after the $50 million funding last week and will boost its total funding to approximately $1 billion, according to Henrik Fisker.
Fisker said they are fully funded all the way to production. He explained that they are a unique business, not a normal car company, they are digital. He said they are working on a new way for getting hardware into production.
They are completely different from Elon Musk’s Tesla who had hired Henrik Fisker to help with designs in the earlier days. Fisker said they are not vertically integrated.
In January at CES in Las Vegas, the company announced its battery powered Ocean SUV which is an excellent crossover made from recycled metals and plastic with a base price of $37,499 that can be leased for $379 a month. Fisker plans on starting a lease-only model that will let customers keep a vehicle for years or return it at any time. It wants to source motor batteries and other components from technical partnerships with automakers and will outsource production from existing auto plants. Aside from Henrik, all 5 of Fisker’s other designers are women.
While the sales of electric cars have risen, the market is poised to expand even further due to the European Union, China, and the US, they will be following California’ strict zero-emission regulations and seek to curb carbon emissions by getting cars and trucks that run on gasoline off the roads.
All automakers including General Motors, Nissan, Honda, Volkswagen, Volvo, and many others are preparing for new electric models and could form potential industrial partners for Fisker.
After great recognition for his designs at Aston Martin and BMW, Fisker’s first attempt for a startup, Fisker Automotive, failed despite its stunning plug-in hybrid concept and early VC funding along with a $527 million low-cost federal loan. As the company raced forward to get vehicles into production, it ran into a series of mistakes including faulty batteries, technical glitches, and a hurricane that destroyed a shipment of Fisker Automotive’s $103,000 Karma luxury cars.
The above-mentioned problems along with other issues led the company into a tailspin followed by bankruptcy in 2013. The company’s assets were purchased by Wangxiang Group which is a Chinese auto parts maker. The company was relaunched as Karma Automotive a few years later. They are selling a plug-in model based on Henrik Fisker’s original design.
Henrik has an unmatched, world-renowned design track record and is supported by an expert management team with years of experience in the automotive industry. Geoffrey Strong chairman and chief executive officer, at Spartan and senior officer to head of infrastructure and natural resources at Apollo, said the right team combined with deep financial resources offered by this transaction further positioned the company to succeed in the rapidly growing industry.
The combined value of Fisker and Sparta of $2.9 billion is based on a $10.00 per share. PIPE price, or private investment in public equity, assumes most current Sparta investors do not redeem their shares. Listing via revenue mergers are typically cheaper than traditional POs which have been used this year by hydrogen truck maker Nikola Motor and laser lidar pioneer Velodyne