Electric vehicle maker Rivian said it will start trading as a public company on the Nasdaq Stock Market next week under the ticker symbol RIVN at a valuation greater than $50 billion.
In a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Rivian said it expects to sell 135 million shares of common stock at a public offering price of between $57 and $62 per share. At that price, Rivian can expect to receive between $7.6 billion and $8.3 billion. It said it was targeting a valuation of $53 billion.
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan are the lead underwriters.
If Rivian goes public at that valuation, it would rival current automakers Stellantis (NYSE:STLA) and Ford (NYSE: F), with valuations of $62 billion and $66 billion, respectively.
Rivian has raised more than $10.5 billion from Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), T. Rowe Price Associates and Fidelity, among others. In the fall of 2019, Amazon ordered 100,000 electric delivery vans from the Southern California-based startup, following an initial $700 million investment from the e-tailer earlier that year.
Prior to that date, Rivian had positioned itself as an adventure vehicle maker, focused on an electric pickup truck, the Rivian R1T, and an electric SUV, the Rivian R1S. In October 2020, Rivian released a prototype of the Amazon vehicle, with delivery expected to begin at the end of the year. Some of the initial vehicles are now on the roads.
Related:
Read: A San Francisco treat: Amazon testing electric Rivian vans
Read: Rivian considers Texas, Arizona for $5B electric vehicle plant
In a regulatory filing on Friday, Amazon disclosed that it held a 20% ownership stake in the electric vehicle maker.
“As of December 31, 2020, and September 30, 2021, equity investments not accounted for under the equity-method and without readily determinable fair values, including preferred stock of Rivian Automotive, Inc. representing an approximately 20% ownership interest, had a carrying value of $2.7 billion and $3.8 billion,” the filing stated.
Amazon has invested nearly $1.3 billion in the automaker and holds nearly 150 million shares of stock, according to filings.
In August, Jim Chen, Rivian’s vice president of public policy, said in an email to FreightWaves that the company is talking with several locations to build a second manufacturing plant. The company is in talks with officials in Fort Worth, Texas, and Mesa, Arizona, about a $5 billion factory that would produce 200,000 vehicles a year.
Amazon began testing Rivian vans in March in the San Francisco area. The vans, which feature a 150-mile range on a single charge, three levels of shelving with a bulkhead door that can be opened and closed for additional driver protection while on the road, and a suite of highway and traffic assist technologies are being driven by Amazon employees.
Amazon expects to have 10,000 Rivian vans on the road by 2022 and the full 100,000 order by 2030.
Click for more articles by Brian Straight.
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