US-based electric car company Faraday Future (FF) will receive $1 billion in funding through a US IPO, half of which comes from Chinese investors.
FF announced Thursday that it will raise about $1 billion through a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Property Solutions Acquisition Corp (PSAC) for a US listing in a deal that will provide roughly $1 billion in funding for FF.
The company said the capital consists of two main components, including $230 million in cash held in trust by PSAC and oversubscription of $775 million in fully committed common stock PIPE (private equity fund) at $10 per share.
"The amount of investment from Chinese investors accounts for roughly 50 percent (of the financing), and the other nearly 50 percent is from European and American investors," the Time Weekly quoted an FF insider as saying.
For the specific list of investors, the source did not disclose, "We are not allowed to disclose the PIPE investors for the time being.
FF is an electric car company founded by Jia Yueting, an entrepreneur who in October 2019 filed for bankruptcy in the US after running up billions of dollars in personal debt.
FF said $175 million of the $775 million PIPE comes from a Tier 1 Chinese City and is subject to regulatory approval. Geely will participate in the PIPE with less than 10 percent of the deal, but the list of other investors has not been released, according to the Time Weekly.
FF and Geely, the Tier 1 Chinese city, intend to form a joint venture. The city will provide about 2,000 acres of industrial land as well as government subsidies, FF's roadshow report said.
FF was founded in 2014 and positioned to produce high-end intelligent electric vehicles rivaled against Tesla. 2016 saw the collapse of the LeTV system and Jia flew to the US to put in a car-making project.
Subsequently, Jia's road to car-making has been extremely turbulent: he suffered a personal debt crisis and business reputation bankruptcy; FF's funding is tight, financing has been repeatedly frustrating, and mass production of the first model FF91 has been delayed again and again.
The merger between FF and PSAC has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies, but still needs to be reviewed through several procedures before completion. After the information was disclosed, PSAC rose about 20 percent on Thursday and 22 percent pre-market on Friday.
Faraday Future has raised $4.8 billion in total funding, second only to Nio
