RJ Skarning, Rivian’s founder and CEO, and Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford, announced a $500 million Ford investment in Rivian.
Source: Ford Motor Company.
Detroit – ford motor liquidated its majority ownership stake in the electric vehicle maker last year Rivian AutomotiveAccording to the Detroit automaker’s annual report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
Ford to sell 91 million shares of EV startup in 2022 as per filing, The sale of Ford shares totaled about $3 billion in proceeds, the company said, a substantial return on its $1.2 billion investment in Rivian.
Ford, as of the end of last year, still owned about 11 million of its initial 101.9 million shares of Rivian. According to FactSet, the company declined to comment on plans for the remaining shares, which still made the automaker one of the company’s largest shareholders. Rivian also declined to comment.
Ford first invested in Rivian in 2019, before the EV maker went public. At the time, both companies said Ford would build an electric vehicle based on the “skateboard” platform that now underpins Rivian’s R1T pickup and R1S SUV. Those plans never came to fruition, despite former Ford CEO Jim Hackett’s enthusiasm for the deal.
But as a result of that initial investment, Ford was one of the largest stakeholders in the company after Rivian. Blockbuster IPO in 2021With 12% stake.
Ford said it sold 25.2 million shares of Rivian in the second quarter for about $700 million in net proceeds. It sold an additional 51.9 million shares during the third quarter for about $1.8 billion, according to an earlier filing.
Hackett’s successor, Jim Farley, had made it clear that Ford would likely sell its stake, but it was unclear when the automaker planned to sell the shares and exit Rivian.
Ford’s unrealized gain/loss was an $8.3 billion profit in 2021 and a $968 million loss in 2022, which hurt the automaker’s bottom-line Last year.
Soon after Rivian’s blockbuster IPO in November 2021, the company’s shares soared to an all-time high of nearly $180 per share amid Wall Street’s infatuation with EV startups, which led to valuations of early or pre-revenue companies .
Rivian’s stock is now trading around $20 per share many missed targets and grew slower than expected vehicle production at a plant in Normal, Illinois. The company’s value has been estimated at around $18 billion.