Cash-strapped British EV maker Arrival has sunk deeper into trouble as two critical financing lifelines have failed to materialise.
On Monday, Arrival announced that its proposed $283m merger with Kensington Capital Acquisition Corporation — a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) — has been terminated. Had it gone through, it would have been Arrival’s second SPAC in two years.
“Arrival intends to redirect its focus towards advancing other opportunities,” it said in a press release. It has hired the investment bank TD Cowen and services firm Teneo Financial Advisory to “pursue alternative avenues that will provide the company with additional liquidity”.
An SEC filing from Monday showed that Arrival has also lost access to a commitment of capital by US hedge fund Antara Capital. The company announced in February that it would raise $50m from Antara, with $25m raised at the time and a further $25m to be “committed” by Antara before June 30. The SEC filing shows the agreement to purchase an additional $25m in equity has been terminated.
Financial lifelines
In June, Sifted detailed how the SPAC deal and the additional funding from Antara were among three financial deals Arrival was relying on to get its vans into production.
The third of those deals is a $300m equity financing line from New York-based investment bank Westwood Capital, which is also precariously positioned.
Westwood will provide the capital on the fulfilment of two conditions. Arrival’s share price needs to be higher than $5 (At close on Monday the price was $2.77), and the company needs to file its annual reports for 2022. Both of those conditions are yet to be met.
In May, Nasdaq told Arrival it no longer complied with listing rules because it hadn't filed its 2022 accounts.
It had until yesterday to either file the accounts or present a plan to do so. So far, SEC filings don’t indicate that it has done so. Arrival’s ticker on the Nasdaq website notes that it is “out of compliance”.
Arrival did not respond to requests for comment, and Nasdaq declined to comment.
Last month Arrival told Sifted: “Our intention is to regain compliance with Nasdaq’s listing requirements.” It has also said that it expects its losses for 2022 to be as high as $1bn.
Arrival initially went public in 2021 via a $5.4bn SPAC deal with CIIG Merger Corp. But its stock price has crashed 99% since then, and it has repeatedly delayed its production launch.
