Electric cars once more will be roiling the stock market once this week as electric vehicle maker Rivian will launch the largest IPO on Wall Street since Facebook in 2012. The carmaker backed by Amazon and Ford is listing 153 million shares at a price of $78 a share on NASDAQ this Wednesday under the RIVN ticker for a total of $11.9 billion.
The Rivian IPO comes after Elon Musk put selling 10% of his Tesla shares up to a twitter vote on Saturday. Tuesday automatic vehicle sensor company Luminar Technologies saw its stock spike on Tuesday on the back of a supply agreement with Nvidia, raising the wealth of America’s youngest billionaire, Austin Russell to new heights. In the last week of October Tesla surpassed $1 trillion valuation after car rental company Hertz, which itself uplisted to NASDAQ on Tuesday, placed an order for 100,000 cars.
Rivian, which touts itself as as a maker of rugged, luxurious, battery-powered vehicles, launched its R1T pick-up in September and will be launching a SUV-model R1S SUV by the end of the year. Pre-order editions of both vehicles sold out in 2020. The company has also received an order of 100,000 electric vans from Amazon, owner of a 20% stake in Rivian. Ford has a 14% stake in the company.
The IPO comes a week after 24 countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, as well as carmakers such as Ford, Mercedes and Volvo, committed to selling only zero-emissions vehicles by 2040 during the COP 26 in Glasgow.
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe, a vegan MIT graduate with a degree in automotive engineering, founded the company in 2009. He currently has a net worth of $1 billion, according to Forbes.
By Staff
Photo credit: Ben Moon/Rivian
