The American electric car manufacturer Rivian entered the American stock exchange on Wednesday and exceeded all expectations. After the start of trading, its shares soared by several tens of percent and with a market value of around $ 93 billion, it ranked ahead of the car giant BMW. It is even $ 6 billion more valuable than America’s largest carmaker, General Motors, even though the company is not yet profitable.
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According to Dealogic, it is one of the ten largest initial public offering (IPO) shares in the United States. Above were such giants as Alibaba, Visa, Facebook or General Motors. The California start-up did not start delivering its first R1T electric pick-ups to customers until September, and has lost more than $ 2 billion in the last two years. The company’s shares began trading on the Nasdaq technology exchange.
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The carmaker is still loss-making
Investors are betting that Rivian will be another big player in the industry, which is now dominated by Tesla. Unlike Tesla, however, Rivian focuses on commercial vehicles.
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A fifth of the shares in Rivian are owned by the American online store Amazon. In an effort to reduce the emissions production of his fleet, he has already ordered 100,000 electric vans from the company. Another more than five percent belong to Ford.
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The biggest subscription this year
The ambitious carmaker, which until recently did not sell a single car, gained $ 11.9 billion, or approximately 260 billion crowns, by selling shares in the primary public offering. It earned $ 78 per share, beating its original plans.
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One Rivian stock opened at $ 106.75. It was thus about 37 percent more expensive than the price at which investors obtained it in the IPO. Rivian initially offered investors 135 million shares, but in the end there were 153 million.
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Founded in 2009, Rivian is now investing heavily in increasing production, which is set to double for the R1T. As of October 31, Rivian had approximately 55,400 pre-orders for the R1T pickup and the R1S sport-utility vehicle (SUV) in the U.S. and Canada, according to a regulatory report. The carmaker is to start production of the last mentioned car in December this year, the first cars will appear on the market in 2023.
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Rivian says its Illinois plant has the capacity to produce up to 150,000 cars a year. The company had more than six thousand employees at the end of June this year.
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The electric car market is experiencing strong global demand growth as consumers increasingly rely on green vehicles. Car manufacturers also have to comply with much stricter emission limits than years ago. In addition, carmakers and customers alike can take advantage of the various incentives that many governments have come up with to encourage the sale of greener cars.
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