RJ Scaringe, founder and CEO of Rivian, and Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford announced Ford’s $500 million investment in Rivian.
Source: Ford Motor Co.
DETROIT – Ford Motor District liquidated most of its ownership stake last year in the electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotiveaccording to the Detroit automaker’s annual report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
Ford is selling 91 million shares of its EV startup in 2022, according to the filing. The sale of Ford stock is worth about $3 billion in total proceeds, the company said, making a big profit from its $1.2 billion investment in Rivian.
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Ford, at the end of last year, still owned about 11 million of Rivian’s 101.9 million shares. The company declined to comment on the remaining stock plan, which still makes the automaker one of its largest shareholders, according to FactSet. Rivian also declined to comment.
Ford first invested in Rivian in 2019, before the EV maker went public. At the time, the two companies said Ford would build an electric vehicle based on the “skateboard” platform that currently underpins Rivian’s R1T pickup and R1S SUV. Despite former Ford CEO Jim Hackett’s enthusiasm for the deal, the plan fell through.
But as a result of that initial investment, Ford became one of the company’s biggest stakeholders when Rivian’s blockbuster IPO in 2021, with a 12% stake.
Ford said it sold 25.2 million Rivian shares in the second quarter, for a total of $700 million. It sold an additional 51.9 million shares during the third quarter for about $1.8 billion, according to a previous filing.
Hackett’s successor, Jim Farley, has made it clear that Ford will sell its stake, but it is unclear when the automaker plans to sell the stake and exit Rivian.
Ford’s unrealized profit/loss is $8.3 billion in 2021 and a loss of $968 million in 2022, which hurt the automaker’s bottom line last year.
Shortly after Rivian’s blockbuster IPO in November 2021, the company’s stock hit a record high of nearly $180 per share as Wall Street’s fascination with EV startups fueled early or pre-revenue company valuations.
Rivian’s stock is currently trading around $20 per share, following several missed targets and a slower-than-expected increase in vehicle production at its plant in Normal, Illinois. The company is worth about $18 billion.