Shares of the electric vehicle company Lucid Group(NASDAQ: LCID) popped today after the company filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showing that it had sold about 396 million shares to Ayar Third Investment Company, a group associated with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF).
The company announced last month that it would be selling additional shares, in addition to an agreement by the PIF to make a large investment.
While investors already knew the share purchase would happen, they responded positively to the news today, pushing up Lucid's stock by as much as 5% today. As of 2:26 p.m. ET Lucid's stock had gained 3.4%.
More cash for Lucid's business
Last month, Lucid said the PIF intended to purchase hundreds of millions of shares of common stock concurrently with a new public offering. So, while today's filing wasn't unexpected, it does finalize Lucid's latest capital raising efforts, giving the company an additional $1 billion.
Lucid has said the public offering and the PIF investment will total about $1.67 billion.
The PIF investment comes at a critical time for Lucid. The company is spending tons of money to get its EV business off the ground as tries to ramp up production of its Air sedan and begins building its new Gravity SUV.
Lucid will report its third-quarter financial results later this week, but the company already announced that it produced 1,805 vehicles in the quarter and delivered 2,781. This represents a production increase of just 16% from the year-ago quarter, though deliveries are up about 90%.
The real problem for Lucid is that in the first six months of this year the company reported revenue of just $373 million, while having a net loss of $1.3 billion. Making vehicles is expensive and Lucid is spending piles of cash right now.
Lucid is facing an uphill battle
Lucid having to raise additional funds from a PIF investment isn't great news for the company. Lucid needs to show that it can significantly increase vehicle production and generate more revenue.
The company has enough money top run its operations through the end of 2025, which is good, but the PIF investment shows that Lucid can't stand on its own two feet yet.
The company says it'll produce about 9,000 vehicles this year, which is only a modest improvement from 2023. The extra cash it just received is nice, but ramping up production and revenue is what Lucid really needs right now.
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Chris Neiger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
