The VinFast EV car on display at the New York Auto Show on April 13, 2022.
Scott Mill | CNBC
Vietnamese electric car maker VinFast said on Friday it will list in the U.S. through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Spades Acquisition Company.
The move comes after the startup said last month that it had secured commitments for a new funding round worth $2.5 billion from Vingroup, the parent of Vietnam’s largest conglomerate, and founder Pham Nhat Vuong, Vietnam’s first billionaire and richest man.
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Post-merger, the new entity would have an enterprise value of approximately $27 billion and an equity value of $23 billion, “assuming no BSAQ shareholders elect to allow their Black Spade shares to be redeemed for cash,” VinFast and Black Spade said in a joint statement. statement.
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2023, and VinFast’s existing shareholders will own approximately 99% of the combined company.
VinFast, which was founded in 2017 and began selling electric vehicles in California this year, previously filed for an initial public offering in the United States last December under the ticker symbol “VFS,” aiming to raise about $60 billion.
The company says it has nearly 55,000 orders worldwide and is capable of producing 300,000 electric vehicles a year.
Black Spade Acquisition, a Hong Kong-based SPAC that will list on the New York Stock Exchange in July 2021, plans to merge with an entertainment company within two years, according to its website.
It was founded by Black Spade Capital Limited, the private investment arm of Lawrence Ho, head of Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd., which operates casinos in Macau and the Philippines, according to the company website and Refinitiv.
Thuy Le, Global CEO of VinFast, said: “The partnership with Black Spade and the listing of VinFast in the US represent the perfect avenue to finance our future global ambitions.”
VinFast joins the likes of Microvast, Faraday Future, Nikola Corp and Lucid in taking electric vehicles public through a special purpose acquisition vehicle, even as a once-frenzied SPAC market cools and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission scrutinizes it more closely.
Seen as a shortcut to the stock market, especially for auto tech companies, SPACs have proven popular with investors looking for a valuation similar to Tesla’s stock — though the combined company’s valuation would typically be on the IPO decline in the next few months.
