- VinFast debuts after merging with special purpose vehicle
- Stock opens at $22 vs $10 agreed with SPAC partner
- CFO sees capital raising in next 18 months ‘for sure’
- VinFast to change distribution model – CEO
World
VinFast’s shares surge in Nasdaq debut for Vietnam EV maker
HANOI/SINGAPORE Aug 15 (Reuters) – VinFast’s shares (VFS.O) soared in thin trading in their Nasdaq debut on Tuesday following the Vietnamese electric vehicle maker’s $23 billion backdoor listing as the startup said it was likely to raise money from global investors within 18 months.
The stock opened at $22, more than double the $10 per share agreed with VinFast’s SPAC partner Black Spade Acquisition (BSAQ.A) that had valued VinFast at $23 billion.
It surged further during the session, ending at $37.06 and valuing the EV maker, which has not posted a profit, at $85 billion, more than Ford’s (F.N) market capitalization at $48 billion and General Motors’ (GM.N) $46 billion stock market value.
About $185 million worth of the company’s shares were exchanged, according to Refinitiv data.
The merger with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) gave Vinfast a listing in a market where founder Pham Nhat Vuong hopes to take on industry leader Tesla (TSLA.O) with a $4 billion factory under construction and a new approach to sales to bring in dealers.
Vietnam’s richest man, Vuong is the beneficial owner of 99% of VinFast’s 2.3 billion ordinary shares after the merger through his flagship company and affiliates.
“We have a number of strategic investors and institutional investors lined up. We expect to formulate some kind of capital raising over the next 18 months, for sure,” VinFast Chief Financial Officer David Mansfield told Reuters.
VinFast has shipped nearly 3,000 vehicles to North America since late last year, but initial sales have been slow. S&P Global Mobility says that only 137 Vinfast EVs had been registered in the United States through June.
“The Street has all its eyes on the leaders in this next frontier with many winners, along with Tesla, in this green EV tidal wave playing out for the coming years,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said.
VinFast CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy said the company was changing its distribution model, which had been based on Tesla’s direct-to-consumer approach, and expected to partner with dealers in overseas markets.
“We are switching to a hybrid model where we have our own showrooms, as well as talking to dealers to open dealer showrooms,” Thuy said in an interview with Reuters.
VinFast was formed as a unit of Vietnam’s largest conglomerate Vingroup (VIC.HM). Vuong, Vingroup and affiliates had invested $9.3 billion in the EV maker, according to a June filing. Vuong pledged $2.5 billion in April to bolster the EV maker, including $1 billion from his personal fortune.
VinFast’s first-quarter revenue dropped 49% from the previous year, and it posted a net loss of $598 million. In 2022, the company posted a loss of $2.1 billion.
It has started construction on a $4 billion plant in North Carolina.
VinFast is entering the American and European markets at a time when EV pricing is under pressure, led by market leader Tesla and a range of Chinese companies.
VinFast’s VF8 starts at $46,000 in California, compared with $47,740 for the Tesla Model Y before accounting for a $7,500 federal tax credit on the Tesla.
Thuy said VinFast was moving toward “cost reduction in the future.”
Thuy said VinFast expected to bring its larger VF9 EV to the U.S. market toward the end of the year and was in the process of getting its cars certified by Europe’s safety regulator.
Reporting by Phuong Nguyen, Yantoultra Ngui and Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat, additional reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit and Noel Randewich in Oakland. Calif.; Editing by Kevin Krolicki, Conor Humphries, Mark Potter, Jonathan Oatis and Sonali Paul
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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World
Bob Bakish Out as Paramount Global CEO
Amid the M&A drama enveloping Paramount Global, Bob Bakish is about to step down as CEO after eight years at the helm of Shari Redstone’s media empire.
Bakish is expected to resign under pressure as early as Monday. The executive has been with Paramount and its Viacom predecessor since 1997. He was recruited by Redstone in 2016 to help bring order to a company that had descended into public legal brawling among shareholders and a battle for control between Redstone and former Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman. Word of Bakish’s pending exit first surfaced Friday in the Wall Street Journal.
At present, Paramount‘s board of directors is deep in exclusive acquisitions talks with Skydance Media and RedBird Capital. Another group, Sony Pictures and Apollo Global Management, is poised to field a formal all-cash offer for the company next week as the May 3 expiration date of the exclusive negotiating window with Skydance nears. As the Skydance talks have dragged on for months, it’s become clear that Skydance CEO David Ellison would take the helm of the enlarged Paramount-Skydance operation while RedBird senior executive Jeff Shell, formerly CEO of NBCUniversal and a longtime Comcast executive, would serve Ellison’s No. 2 overseeing day-to-day operations. There has been no pretense about carving out a role for Bakish.
A rep for Paramount Global declined to comment Saturday. The company is set to report its first quarter earnings on Monday. Bakish will not take part in the traditional conference call with analysts that accompanies quarterly earnings disclosures, CNBC reported.
Bakish was virtually assured of leaving his post as the company’s leader once the sale process is completed, no matter who acquires Paramount Global. The company has been through the wringer over the past year with a slumping stock price, successive quarters of weak earnings pulled down by losses in its streaming division. CNBC reported that Bakish’s exit was hastened by his opposition to the merger plan that is coming together with Skydance.
World
British tourist has hand, thigh severed after being mauled by bull shark in Caribbean: 'Lucky to be alive'
A 64-year-old British tourist has lost his arm and leg after being mauled by a bull shark on the southeastern Caribbean island of Tobago.
According to Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Farley Augustine, Peter Smith was in waist-deep water when the attack happened near the Starfish Resort in Courland Bay, a popular tourist destination in Tobago.
Augustine said the bull shark was approximately 8 to 10 feet long, and 2 feet wide.
“He’s lucky to be alive,” fellow tourist Stephanie Wright told The Mirror. “I saw a dorsal fin come out of the water and thought, ‘’Oh my God, it’s a shark.’’
A BRITISH TOURIST IS IN A HOSPITAL AFTER A SHARK ATTACK; TOBAGO CLOSES SEVERAL BEACHES
Augustine said that the attack happened just 30 feet from the shore on Friday, April 26, at 9:15 a.m.
Officials said that the tourist was hospitalized in an intensive care unit following the attack.
He said the victim’s left hand had been severed from the elbow down, his left thigh was also severed, and he also received lacerations to his stomach.
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO FACING ‘NATIONAL EMERGENCY’ AFTER MAJOR COASTAL OIL SPILL
Photos from the Chief Secretary’s office showed graphic images of Smith’s severe shark bites along his body.
The Chief Secretary said that he had spoken to the British High Commissioner and the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard and the agencies were closely monitoring the area.
“Currently, we are doing drone reconnaissance/surveillance, Coast Guard surveillance, and the Department of Fisheries is combing the area to ensure safety,” Augustine said.
Shark attacks are rare. Last year, there were 69 unprovoked attacks and 22 provoked bites worldwide, along with 14 fatalities, according to the Florida-based International Shark Attack File.
World
Iraq criminalises same-sex relationships with maximum 15 years in prison
The law is backed mainly by Shia Muslim parties who form the largest coalition in Iraq’s parliament.
Iraq’s parliament has passed a law criminalising same-sex relationships with a maximum 15-year prison sentence, in a move it said aimed to uphold religious values, but was condemned by rights advocates as the latest attack on the LGBTQ community in Iraq.
The law adopted on Saturday aims to “protect Iraqi society from moral depravity and the calls for homosexuality that have overtaken the world,” according to a copy of the law seen by the Reuters news agency.
It was backed mainly by conservative Shia Muslim parties who form the largest coalition in Iraq’s parliament.
The Law on Combating Prostitution and Homosexuality bans same-sex relations with at least 10 years and a maximum of 15 years in prison, and mandates at least seven years in prison for anybody who promotes homosexuality or prostitution.
The amended law makes “biological sex change based on personal desire and inclination” a crime and punishes transgender people and doctors who perform gender-affirming surgery with up to three years in prison.
The bill had initially included the death penalty for same-sex acts but was amended before being passed after strong opposition from the United States and European nations.
‘A serious blow to human rights’
Until Saturday, Iraq did not explicitly criminalise gay sex, though loosely defined morality clauses in its penal code had been used to target LGBTQ people, and members of the community have also been killed by armed groups and individuals.
“The Iraqi parliament’s passage of the anti-LGBT law rubber-stamps Iraq’s appalling record of rights violations against LGBTQ people and is a serious blow to fundamental human rights,” Rasha Younes, deputy director of the LGBTQ rights programme at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.
“Iraq has effectively codified in law the discrimination and violence members of the LGBTI community have been subjected to with absolute impunity for years,” the AFP news agency quoted Amnesty International’s Iraq Researcher Razaw Salihy as saying.
“The amendments concerning LGBTI rights are a violation of fundamental human rights and put at risk Iraqis whose lives are already hounded daily,” Salihy added.
Lawmaker Raed al-Maliki, who advanced the amendments, told AFP that the law “serves as a preventive measure to protect society from such acts”.
Major Iraqi parties have in the past year stepped up criticism of LGBTQ rights, with rainbow flags frequently being burned in protests by both governing and opposition conservative Shia Muslim factions last year.
More than 60 countries criminalise gay sex, while same-sex sexual acts are legal in more than 130 countries, according to Our World in Data.
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