Rivian Nosedives as Ford Unloads Shares

The wealth of many is won and lost in the American stock markets – or even in reports of stock sales. Markets reacted this morning to a news release claiming that Ford Motor Company is giving up 8 million shares of Rivian shares, the latter being an EV startup with a project to produce the R1T pickup and R1S SUV.

In pre-market trading, Rivian shares fell more than 10 percent to just $ 25 a share, well above the 52-week high of nearly $ 180. Yeesh.

Last weekend, it was reported that Blue Oval is seeking to get rid of 8 million shares of Rivian shares, which is less than a tenth of EV’s 102 million shares. The so-called “share blocking period” for first-time investors such as Ford apparently expired on Sunday, leaving Glass House free to exercise its ownership as it sees fit. It would seem that they want to leave – or at least in part.

For those of you who have missed the economy, IPO blocking is a period of days, usually 90 to 180 days, after the initial public offering of shares, during which shares cannot be sold by company insiders and are usually applied to entities such as founders companies. and owners, but may also include early investors such as venture capitalists. Ford ranks itself among the last group as far as Rivian is concerned.

It is unfortunate that the relationship between Ford and Rivian is confusing, as both companies produce fully electric pickups and are essentially competing with each other. Initially, the two organizations have long talked about a partnership with a tripartite approach to EV, at least one of which would see that Ford uses the so-called chassis chassis “Rivian” in their own cars. As we now know, Ford did like Fleetwood Mac, and went its own way and started producing the F-150 Lightning, a car that we will be covering extensively later this week.

At the time of writing, $ RIVN is trading at $ 23.95 per share. In November, the IPO price was $ 78, making it the sixth in U.S. history and the largest in 2021. It more than doubled in seven days before reaching about $ 100 by the end of the year. About three weeks later it fell below the IPO price and has not come close to it since. Ford’s own shares are currently worth $ 13.62 per share.

[Image: Rivian]

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