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Luxury Electric vehicles (Lotus Technology), a unit of British sports car maker Lotus, announced on November 27th that it had raised $870 million in financing ahead of its merger with special purpose acquisition company L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp (LCAA).

The money includes new financing commitments of $750 million, as well as about $120 million announced on April 28, 2023, all of which are based on a pre-investment valuation of $5.5 billion, Lutes said in a statement. Investors will receive publicly issued shares upon completion of the merger (subject to resale restrictions under applicable securities laws), regardless of LCAA's existing shareholders, Lutes Technology's tradable shares are expected to increase to more than 19 per cent. According to the statement, the financing will be used for the company's overall expansion and innovation, including the development of self-driving technology and the expansion of production capacity. In addition, Lutes Technology plans to use some of the money to strengthen its global sales and marketing operations.

According to reports, LCAA is a special purpose acquisition company listed on NASDAQ, belonging to L Catterton, a consumer goods private equity firm. After the completion of the merger, LCAA shareholders became Lutes Technology shareholders and LCAA became a wholly owned subsidiary of Lutes Technology.

On January 31 this year, Lutes Technology announced that it had reached a final merger agreement with LCAA, which is expected to be completed in the second half of 2023. According to the merger agreement, after the completion of the deal, LCAA will be renamed Lutes Technology, headquartered in Wuhan, listed on NASDAQ and listed as American depositary shares (ADS) under the stock symbol "LOT".

2017 marked a turning point for Lutes, when Geely acquired a 51 per cent stake in Lutes. The following year, Lutes unveiled its "Vision80" 10-year brand renaissance plan and announced a full transformation into an all-electric sports car brand.

In August 2021, Lutes officially announced the establishment of Lutes Technology Company, and moved its global headquarters to Wuhan Economic Development Zone. Lutes Global Intelligent Factory will also be located in Wuhan, and released the product matrix for the next five years. According to Lutes' plan, in the next five years, Lutes Technology plans to launch four pure electric vehicles, including the pure electric intelligent SUV with internal code name Type132, the pure electric intelligent four-door sedan with internal code name Type133, the new pure electric intelligent species with internal code name Type134 and the pure electric trot with internal code name Type135. Previously, Geely said that after expanding from sports cars to household cars, Lutes expects annual sales to grow nearly 100-fold to 150000 vehicles in 10 years' time, and China will account for half of its global sales in the next five years.

At present, Lutes Group is jointly owned by Chinese automaker Geely Group and Malaysia's Etika Automotive, and the smooth realization of IPO is Lutes' strategic task this year. As the merger with LCAA moves forward, the company is expected to continue to use the name Lutes Technology after the Nasdaq listing, and the American depositary shares (ADS) represented by its common shares are expected to be listed under the stock symbol "LOT". The current leadership of the company will also remain in office.

It is worth mentioning that a number of Geely companies have sought to go public. Polar Krypton publicly filed its IPO (initial public offering) prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Nov. 10. Polar Krypton plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "ZK", according to the prospectus. An investment banker told the media that polar krypton is close to listing and is only one shot away from the door.

This means that Lutes and polar krypton may be listed on the front and back feet. For Geely, this is undoubtedly an important step in its layout of the new energy vehicle market.

In response to this development, Lutes Technology CEO Feng Qingfeng said that the company is seeking to take advantage of the growth opportunities in the luxury electrification market through mergers. The $870 million in financing commitments received this year shows that global investors are confident in the performance and growth potential of Lutes Technology.

It should be noted that compared with Porsche and Ferrari, which are also super brands, Lutes can not compete with the former two in terms of brand strength and product strength. In July, Lutes announced 200 job cuts because the company decided to restructure its business in the hope of building the right organizational structure to achieve its business goals and build a strong and sustainable future. At that time, the layoffs also sparked speculation that the industry believes that layoffs may have been caused by poor management.

However, officials responded that the layoffs were only to adjust the organizational structure, not because of the decline in business or affected by the performance of the 2022 results. But in fact, Lutes' current situation is not going well. Total revenue of Lutes in 2022 was 56.337 million pounds (about 521 million), down 30.3 percent from a year earlier, and a loss of 145.1 million pounds (1.342 billion yuan), up 67.5 percent from a year earlier, according to financial data. As for the decline in revenue, it is mainly related to its poor sales. According to the data, the cumulative sales of Lutes in 2022 was 576 vehicles, down 63.2% from the same period last year. As a reference, the cumulative sales of Lutes in 2021 was 1566.

So far, Lutes' products on sale include the first pure electric supercar Evija, the fuel supercar Emira, and the first smart pure electric SUV Eletre, of which the Evija has not yet been delivered and is a limited edition model with a starting price of 2 million pounds, while Eletre assumed the responsibility of Lutes' development from niche to pure electric luxury mainstream market, but the car did not begin to be delivered until the 2023 Shanghai Auto Show. In other words, the Emira is the main source of sales for Lutes in 2022.

In the middle of this month, there was news in the market that Lutes, who went to IPO in the United States through SPAC, planned to complete the merger next month and officially land on Nasdaq. The merger is also seen as a key step in the public listing of Lutes Technology and a strategic choice to enhance its competitiveness in the highly competitive global electric vehicle market.

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