AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)06/27 Report--

On June 27th Aston Martin announced that the company had reached an agreement with Lucid to work together to produce high-performance electric vehicles. Under the terms of the proposed agreement, Aston Martin will issue 28.35 million new common shares to Lucid and pay cash to Lucid in installments, with a total value of approximately $232 million. At that time, Lucid Group will become a shareholder in Aston Martin, with a stake of about 3.7 per cent.

It is reported that Aston Martin will pay a total of $132 million in cash to Lucid in phases and promise to spend at least $225 million on the electric carmaker's powertrain components. In addition, Aston Martin will pay Lucid another $10 million to integrate its technology into its products.

"the proposed supply agreement with Lucid will be an important turning point in the company's electric vehicle growth," said Lawrence Stroll, executive chairman of Aston Martin. Roberto Fedeli, CTO of Aston Martin, believes that electric vehicle technology using Lucid, which includes electric powertrain and battery system, will be the center of Aston Martin's new EV platform, from supercars to sports cars and SUV, to fit all the company's future products.

Aston Martin, which was founded in 1913 and has a history of 100 years, is one of the world's well-known ultra-luxury car brands, founded by Lionel Martin (Lionel Martin) and Robert Bamford (Robert Banford), originally called Benford and Martin Co., Ltd. (Bamford & Martin Ltd.).

As an ultra-luxury brand in the automobile industry, the development of Aston Martin is very tortuous, and capital has become its biggest problem, which is also the main reason for its repeated bankruptcy and resale. In June 2018, Aston Martin was listed on the London Stock Exchange in the UK, hoping to improve its operation through fund-raising in the secondary market. However, after the listing, Aston Martin's performance has not been effectively improved, and the share price has plummeted and is still hovering at the bottom.

Since going public, Aston Martin has never been out of the loss quagmire. In 2019, Aston Martin lost 104 million pounds before taxes; in 2020, Aston Martin lost 323 million pounds. Aston Martin's sales rose sharply in 2021, narrowing the loss, but the full-year operating loss still reached 76.5 million pounds. In 2022, its operating loss widened again to 118 million pounds. The situation has not improved in the first quarter of this year. According to Aston Martin's results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2023, the company posted an operating loss of £50.9 million, compared with £47.7 million over the same period, an increase of 7 per cent year-on-year.

In addition, Aston Martin also fell into the situation of "borrowing to get by". According to media reports, Aston Martin issued a total of $150 million (1.07 billion yuan) of bonds in 2019 due to liquidity "emergency" to alleviate the problem of illiquidity. According to Aston Martin's management, the poor performance was due to weakness in the UK and Europe, as well as weak demand for Vantage models.

Industry insiders believe that Aston Martin is in a deep financial quagmire and lacks widespread attraction, so it is difficult to achieve the sales performance of Ferrari, thus providing sufficient funds for electrification transformation. Whether it is Geely's increase in holdings, or the agreement with Lucid, it can be seen that Aston Martin hopes to increase sales through technical cooperation as soon as possible. Of course, only time will tell whether electrification can help Aston Martin embark on the road of turning losses into profits.

It is understood that Aston Martin announced the Racing Green strategy in April 2022, and is expected to officially deliver its first plug-in hybrid model, Valhalla, in early 2024, and launch the brand's first pure electric model in 2025; in 2026, all new models will have plug-in hybrid or pure electric versions. By 2030, when the electric transformation is completed, 95% of its cars will be electric, and the remaining 5% of the internal combustion engine sports cars will be exclusive to the track.

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