Geely already owns the British car company Lotus, which has announced that it will merge with the L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp. SPAC. The merged company will likely keep the name Lotus Technology Inc., worth about $5.4 billion. Geely and the other people who own shares in Lotus are expected to keep 89.7% of the new business. After the IPO, the common shares of Lotus are likely to be traded on the NASDAQ under the ticker “LOT.” Even though Lotus is going public, only a little will change. Geely, the parent company, and its co-owners are expected to keep 89.7% of the company’s control. After the IPO, Lotus’s common shares will likely be traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol “LOT.” It’s important to know that the new acquisition firm, or SPAC, investing in Lotus is linked to Bernard Arnault and his LVMH luxury goods conglomerate, which is based in France and makes everything from champagne to haute couture clothes. A different feel but the same name After the sale by the special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp., Lotus will likely keep the name “Lotus Technology Inc.” and have a new enterprise value of about $5.4 billion. A press release from Lotus says that this assessment is worth about $288 million in cash from Catterton’s trust account, assuming that none of the company’s public shareholders decide to sell their shares. The Eletre SUV appears to be on track Geely’s CEO, Qingfeng Feng, will still be in charge, and it looks like the plan for making cars. Here is where you can find the official news. When we asked Lotus how the merger would affect their short-term and long-term production goals, they pointed us in this direction. The Eletre SUV should still start shipping to customers in China in the first quarter of this year, followed by the UK and the rest of Europe later in the year. Lotus still wants to sell cars worldwide in 2024, so the US and the rest of the world may have to wait. The IPO campaign is part of a bigger plan by Lotus and Geely to make the company more important worldwide. Because of this, the British company will likely do well when it goes public. In December, Lotus’s managing director, Matt Windle, told us that the company had received more than 10,000 orders for the new Emira, with more than a third of those sales happening in the US. Also, Lotus sold more cars between Goodwood 2021, when the Emira was introduced, and Goodwood 2022 than in the six years before. An Ownership Story to Be Proud Of Since Colin Chapman started the company in 1952, it has been sold more than once. After Chapman died, the company was about to go bankrupt before General Motors and Toyota bought it. In the end, an Italian businessman named Romano Artioli purchased the company. At the time, Artioli also owned Bugatti. Geely, also known as Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, bought 51% of Lotus in 2017. Geely has already spent hundreds of millions to bring Lotus into the modern car-making age.
