Zero emission truck company Nikola to merge with VectoIQ
Nikola will automatically become stockholders of Nikola Corporation publicly traded stock (NKLA) after merger with VectorIQ
On 3rd March 2020, Nikola, the US producer of heavy-duty trucks with batteries and hydrogen fuel cells, has become a Nasdaq listed organization. The immediate entry to the stock market was made feasible by a merger with the already registered company VectoIQ Acquisition Corporation.
According to Nikola Motor, after the end of the merger in the second quarter of 2020, the new company will be called Nikola Corporation and will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol NKLA, the merged company will thus be worth USD 3.3 billion.
The agreement includes a private placement of ordinary shares for 525 million dollars. The shares will be set primarily with institutional investors, but Nikola’s existing shareholders will continue to be the majority shareholders of the merged company.
According to Trevor Milton, Nikola’s founder and CEO, the listing and additional fundraising should end up raising about $1 billion for Nikola. Milton indicated that the motive for merging and obtaining shares on Nasdaq by VectoIQ was about speed. Trevor Milton estimates that Nikola saved at least six months compared to the current public listing.
According to CEO of VectoIQ, a former Vice President of General Motors, Stephen Girsky, in a two-year search for an associate, Nikola proved to be a technology leader and focused on making a global difference, Nikola was the clear winner.
According to Nikola, the profits from the IPO will be used to advance the construction of the plant in Coolidge in the US state of Arizona and thus hasten its production project. Nikola expects to make revenue by 2021 with the rollout of its BEV truck, with FCEV truck sales beginning shortly after in 2023. Nikola declares that it intends an initial build-out of hydrogen fueling stations to assist their customer’s fleets, indicating Anheuser-Busch as such an example.
Nikola says that it has more than 14,000 pre-orders drawing more than $10 billion in possible revenue and two-and-a-half years of production. In addition to the projected factory in Arizona, Nikola will also produce in Germany.
In Europe with Iveco, a subsidiary of Nikola shareholders CNH Industrial, the Nikola Tre battery-electric heavy-duty truck will be built in Ulm, Germany, from 2021 onwards. Following the models with a battery-electric drive, the Tre will also be released with fuel cells from 2023 onwards. Just last month, Bosch gave an update on the series production of fuel cell systems for trucks, confirming that Nikola will use Bosch fuel cell systems.
