El fondo saudí del polémico tuit de Musk que iba a meter 72 billones en Tesla se está pensando si es mejor meter solo 1 billón en Lucid, la competencia de Tesla que montó su vicepresidente
BUSINESS NEWS
AUGUST 19, 2018 / 9:44 PM / UPDATED 19 HOURS AGO
Exclusive: Saudi PIF in talks to invest in aspiring Tesla rival Lucid - sources
Dasha Afanasieva,
Harry Brumpton
(Reuters) - PIF, the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund that Tesla Inc (
TSLA.O) CEO Elon Musk has said could help him fund a $72 billion deal to take his electric car maker private, is in talks to invest in aspiring Tesla rival Lucid Motors Inc, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
California-based Lucid Motors unveiled a prototype of a luxury sedan the Lucid Air at its unveiling in Fremont, California, U.S., December 14, 2016. REUTERS/Alexandria Sage
The talks between privately-held Lucid Motors and PIF underscore the latter’s appetite to invest in electric car makers to diversify the oil-rich Middle Eastern kingdom’s investment portfolio.
A deal with Lucid Motors would also be more in line with PIF’s limited resources, given that, despite its $250 billion in assets, PIF has already made substantial commitments to other technology companies or investments, including a $45-billion agreement to invest in a giant technology fund led by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp (
9984.T).
PIF and Lucid Motors have drawn up a term sheet under which PIF could invest more than $1 billion in Lucid Motors and obtain majority ownership, the sources said. PIF’s first investment in Lucid Motors, however, would be for $500 million, and subsequent cash injections would come in two stages that are contingent on Lucid Motors hitting certain production milestones, one of the sources added.
The talks between PIF and Lucid Motors may not result in a deal, the sources cautioned.
The sources asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential. PIF and Lucid Motors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Musk, a 47-year-old investor and engineer, stunned financial markets earlier this month, when he revealed on Twitter he was considering a $420 per share take-private deal for Tesla, an auto manufacturing pioneer that developed the world’s first ever premium all-electric sedan car.
He added that funding was “secured,” and elaborated last Monday that he believed Saudi Arabia’s PIF could provide the necessary funding, although sources close to the sovereign wealth fund have played down that prospect. Earlier this year, PIF built a stake of just under 5 percent in Tesla by snapping up shares in the open market, rather than acquiring newly issued shares.
Tesla Inc303.37
TSLA.ONASDAQ
-2.13(-0.70%)
Musk has also said he believes two-thirds of existing Tesla shareholders would roll over their holdings into a private company, rather than cash out, and that he was still talking with major shareholders and advisers before settling on a structure for a deal.
Getting access to cheap capital is a constant challenge for automakers, which can spend $1 billion or more engineering a single new model and bringing it to mass production, only to have the vehicle flop because of a cyclical sales slump or a shift in market tastes.
Based on the edges of Silicon Valley in Newark, California, Lucid Motors was founded in 2007 as Atieva by Bernard Tse, a former Tesla vice president and board member, and Sam Weng, a former exec at Oracle Corp and Redback Networks. It received backing from Chinese investors, including tech entrepreneur Jia Yueting and state-owned automaker BAIC. Other venture capital backers have included Venrock, Mitsui & Co and Tsing Capital.
Lucid Motors is not yet selling any cars. In 2016, it unveiled a prototype of its Lucid Air model, a $100,000 luxury sedan it had hoped to begin building in Arizona in late 2018. It is not clear when this car will become available, though the company is accepting refundable deposits of $2,500 from consumers on its website.
Tesla is much more advanced as an electric car manufacturer, though investors are questioning how long can it go before turning a profit. It has been burning through cash as it has aggressively ramped up Model 3 production, a process Musk has called “production hell.”
Analysts at UBS last week questioned the profitability of the Model 3, in a report that said Tesla could lose $6,000 on every base model.
Reporting by Dasha Afanasieva in London and Harry Brumpton in New York; Additional reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit and Saeed Azhar in Dubai; Editing by Nick Zieminski
Our Standards:
The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
BUSINESS NEWS
AUGUST 20, 2018 / 2:50 PM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
Tesla nears three-month low as JPMorgan adds to deal doubts
Sonam Rai
3 MIN READ
(Reuters) - Tesla Inc (
TSLA.O) shares fell nearly 4 percent on Monday as a $113 cut in JPMorgan Chase’s (
JPM.N) price target for the electric carmaker added to growing doubts among market players about a plan to take the company private.
A Tesla electric car supercharger station is seen in Los Angeles, California, U.S. August 2, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Slashing its price target for Tesla Inc (
TSLA.O) from $308 to $195, the brokerage said it did not believe Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk had funds for a plan announced by a tweet that said “funding secured” two weeks ago.
Analysts from the U.S. bank had upped its forecast from $198 to $308 after a roughly $100 surge in Tesla stock following Musk’s tweets on Aug. 7 and the note on Monday was the latest evidence of scepticism about the deal on Wall Street.
People familiar with the matter said on Sunday that PIF, the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund that Musk says had been pressing to help fund the buyout, is in talks to invest in aspiring Tesla rival Lucid Motors Inc.
“Our interpretation of subsequent events leads us to believe that funding was not secured for a going private transaction, nor was there any formal proposal,” JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman wrote in a client note.
“Tesla does appear to be exploring a going private transaction, but we now believe that such a process appears much less developed than we had earlier presumed, suggesting formal incorporation into our valuation analysis seems premature at this time,” Brinkman said.
JPM now targets the stock, which it continues to value at underweight, back at $195, versus Friday’s close of $305.50. The median price target of the Wall Street analysts covering Tesla is $336.
Tesla shares touched a three-month low of $285 in premarket trading before recovering to trade around $290, reducing its market value back below that of General Motors (
GM.N) as the biggest U.S. carmaker.
Tesla Inc301.02
TSLA.ONASDAQ
-4.48(-1.47%)
An interview with the New York Times, in which Musk said he was under major emotional stress in the “most difficult year” of his life, on Friday added to investors’ concerns over his leadership after a series of social media spats.
A person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters last week that the SEC has opened an inquiry related to Musk’s tweets on the buyout and the billionaire is also facing a class action suite from investors who lost money in the share moves.
“The lack of process to (Musk’s) announcement has now caused governance and competency concerns which are starting to snowball,” said Tigress Financial Partners analyst Ivan Feinseth.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...iring-tesla-rival-lucid-sources-idUSKCN1L40MP
