Taiga Motors headquarters is seen in Montreal on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Taiga Motors Corp. TAIG-T has lost half its market value after suspending production and reporting financial results that suggest its future is in jeopardy without another major cash infusion.
Shares in the Montreal-based manufacturer of electric snowmobiles and personal watercraft fell Wednesday by 53 per cent in trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, closing the day at $0.30. That would give the company a market capitalization of about $9.6-million. When it went public in April, 2020, the stock traded above $14.
Investors soured on Taiga after the company announced late Tuesday that it would pause production indefinitely and temporarily lay off about 70 workers in response to what it called a challenging “economic context” and unusually mild winter, which hurt sales of its snowmobiles. The company, which employed about 300 people last fall, cut 30 jobs in February and has slashed its work force by a third since then.
Led by founder and chief executive Samuel Bruneau, Taiga is trying to revolutionize the powersports industry with its all-electric vehicles – bringing an environmental sensibility to a sector historically hooked on loud revving engines. The company is one of Quebec’s homegrown hopefuls for the EV age, but it has struggled to scale up production, experiencing numerous challenges including what it said was a failure by certain suppliers to deliver on contracts.
In filings accompanying its latest earnings report, the company’s auditors said there was a material uncertainty about Taiga’s ability to continue as a going concern.
Taiga ended last year with $5.3-million in cash. The company announced in March that it cemented another $5.25-million in credit from Export Development Canada. But it will need to source significant new funds to sustain even scaled down operations in the coming quarters, according to National Bank of Canada analyst Cameron Doerksen.
“While we believe Taiga has developed competitive products in the electric snowmobile and PWC space, even if the company is able to source additional capital, there may be little equity value remaining for existing shareholders,” Mr. Doerksen said in a research report.
Taiga on Tuesday reported a net loss of $72.5-million for 2023 on revenue of $16.1-million. It did not hold a conference call with investors and said it will not provide any financial, production or sales forecasts for the time being.
The company’s biggest shareholder is Northern Private Capital, a Toronto-based investment firm led buy John Risley and Andrew Lapham. Northern led a consortium in 2019 that bought MDA, Maxar Technologies Inc.’s Canadian space and defence unit, for $1-billion.
Nicolas Van Praet