Shares of Lucid Group’s stock tumbled today on news that the group is raising about $3 billion in a common stock offering, with the majority of the money coming from the electric vehicle maker’s Saudi owners, the Public Investment Fund.
The stock is down 15% over the previous 24 hours, since the announcement, and is down more than 60% in the last year.
The company announced the raise along with a corresponding investment by its owners — Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — in a statement, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. PIF, the kingdom’s largest sovereign wealth fund, is purchasing $1.8 billion of the stock in a private placement.
The fund already owns about 60% the California-based EV maker.
“Lucid intends to use the net proceeds from the public offering, as well as from the private placement by its majority stockholder, for general corporate purposes,” the company said.
PIF first invested in Lucid in 2018, and steadily accumulated more shares until it held a majority ownership when the startup went public in 2021 through a combination with a special purpose acquisition company. The EV maker’s market value temporarily catapulted above established rivals Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. that year, and the shares jumped in January this year amid expectation of a buyout by PIF.
