The U.S. securities regulator has requested Lucid Group for documents linked to an investigation into its blank-verify offer, joining a increasing record of firms that have appear below scrutiny for their merger with shell corporations.
Shares of the luxurious electrical-automobile maker fell about 14% in pre-market trading on Monday just after disclosing that it had received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee on Dec. 3.
“The investigation appears to issue the company combination in between the Enterprise (Churchill Capital Corp. IV) and Atieva Inc and selected projections and statements,” Lucid said in a regulatory filing.
Lucid’s offer with veteran dealmaker Michael Klein’s blank-check out acquisition business had offered the merged organization a pro-forma fairness value of $24 billion and was accomplished earlier this calendar year.
It was a single of the most significant in a string of deals with Unique Objective Acquisition Corporations (SPACs) that included electric powered car or truck makers such as Nikola and Fisker.
The California startup joins numerous other electric-auto makers being investigated by federal companies and regulators as they hurry to meet production targets and catch up with Tesla which is developing just about 200,000 autos each individual quarter.
Nikola Corp is doing work with U.S. regulators to fork out a $125 million penalty to settle a charge versus its founder Trevor Milton for using social media to continuously mislead buyers.
Lordstown Motors is remaining investigated for automobile pre-orders and its merger with blank-check out business DiamondPeak Holdings.
Founded in 2007 as Atieva Inc by previous Tesla govt Bernard Tse and entrepreneur Sam Weng, Lucid is aiming to reach production focus on of 20,000 automobiles in 2022 and 50,000 in 2023.
Lucid experienced in September secured $4.4 billion it needed until the end of following year.
It was funded in the beginning by Chinese and Silicon Valley undertaking traders, with additional funding from backers like condition-owned Chinese automobile maker BAIC Motor and Chinese know-how corporation LeEco.
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