12:15 pm, November 19, 2020
British electric van developer Arrival is to go public on the United States Nasdaq with a valuation of $5.4bn (£4bn) despite not yet building a production ready vehicle.
Arrival is based in Bicester, Oxfordshire, and has research and development facilities in Reading and Banbury for its completely electric vans and buses.
It made the announcement yesterday, the same day the UK government announced that the ban on selling new petrol and diesel vehicles would be brought forward to 2030.
Arrival will be listed by a special purchase acquisition company (SPAC), also known as a ‘blank cheque’ investment fund, by merging with CIIG Merger Corp, which is run by Peter Cuneo – previously a chief executive for Marvel.
Arrival is currently loss-making five years since it was formed and wont begin production until at least 2022.
However, Kia and Hyundai have already invested invested €100m (£88.6m) for a three per cent stake, while American asset manager Blackrock invested $118m (£88.4m).
UPS has also committed to purchase 10,000 of its electric vans.
Arrival plans to use ‘microfactories’ for production, which use robots to build the cars and can be set up within six months anywhere in the world.
Arrival’s first US microfactory in South Carolina
In its statement about the upcoming floatation, Arrival said it plans to be profitable by 2023.
Denis Sverdlov, founder and CEO of Arrival, said: ‘With Arrival’s products our clients are not forced to compromise between being green and being cost efficient.
‘Our focus on the whole EV ecosystem, new methods of design and production and our enabling technologies are the key to driving down the cost of EVs and accelerating the transition to zero-emission transportation globally.’
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