Why is this billionaire investor so focused on a single electric vehicle manufacturer?
2 min readCutting a huge check to help bring fledgling electric car maker Polestar public simply makes sense for investment pioneer Alec Gores, who has built a reputation for himself in recent years with very effective SPAC transactions with Luminar and Hostess. According to Gores, it just checks all the boxes.
“We truly see a profusion of deals. First and foremost, we thoroughly vet everything. Then we get a lot of discussions about what we’ve discovered. The trick is to start with a fantastic firm that has the capacity to be a market leader. Then there’s the management team, followed by the product, which must be excellent, as well as revenues and projections. Most importantly, we must be on the same page with the management team. In this case, Thomas [Ingenlath, Polestar Chief Executive Officer] and his staff have done an outstanding job. Having a Volvo link also helps here “Gores outlined his selection process for executing a SPAC contract with Polestar on Yahoo Finance Live.
Polestar (a Volvo subsidiary) announced this week that it will be going public by uniting with a SPAC founded by Gores as well as investment bank Guggenheim. Polestar has a $20 billion enterprise value thanks to its merger with Gores Guggenheim SPAC. Polestar will use the $800 million in funding from Gores Guggenheim to increase up manufacturing of its existing model line and explore new offerings.
According to Polestar’s investor presentation, the company hopes to break even by 2023. By the end of 2025, the company expects to have generated $17.8 billion in sales and $1.6 billion in terms of operating profits.
“This is a delivery company; we actually deliver vehicles. This year, we’ve had 29,000 deliveries. I believe Alec and his staff believe we will meet our estimates because of our track record “According to Yahoo Finance Live, Ingenlath. Gores have been added to the mix “This excites us tremendously. This is something we believe in. Thomas and his group will become one of space’s most powerful forces. In the revenues, we do have a lot of convictions. It’s not a concept car; it’s a real car.”
Alec E. Gores is a multibillionaire American businessman who made his fortune via leveraged buyouts of the technology companies through his company The Gores Group. Beginning in the mid-2010s, he was also key in popularising SPACs. With the formation of Gores Holdings in 2015, Gores began a new platform focusing on the Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), and Gores and The Gores Group is recognized with kickstarting the SPAC resurgence with their first SPAC acquisition in Hostess. The Gores Group is a leading SPAC sponsor, and Gores is regarded among the most productive investors in the SPAC industry, having formed 13 SPACs, more so than any other single investor.
