On Monday, Harley-Davidson
LiveWire plans to be the latest in a long string of electric vehicle brands to go public by merging with a blank check company, like AEA, even as the practice comes under increasing scrutiny from regulators.
Harley Davidson says LiveWire will net $545 million from the deal based on a pro forma valuation of $1.77 billion, and will launch under the ticker LVW sometime early next year.
With LiveWire being a key component of Harley-Davidson's five-year plan to boost slowing sales, the legacy motorcycle maker will retain a significant interest in the company which will own 74% of its publicly traded shares. Meanwhile, Davidson's current CEO, Jochen Zeitz, will serve as LiveWire's interim chair for the next two years as the spinoff company scouts for new leadership.
"As a separate company with the investment needed to execute its strategic plan, LiveWire will be able to operate with the same agility and speed as a startup," said Zeitz. "This transaction will give LiveWire the freedom to fund new product development and accelerate its go-to-market model."
In its statement, Harley-Davidson says that LiveWire will act as an urban-focused brand initially and will "draw on its DNA as an agile disruptor from the lineage of Harley-Davidson."
When asked whether LiveWire would eat into Davidson's market share, Zeitz told reporters that the two brands are "very complementary and not cannibalizing at all."
LiveWire launched as a separate brand from Harley-Davidson earlier this year and released its flagship LiveWire One model in July. The One has a 146-mile range on city streets, can be recharged in as little as an hour, and is competitively priced at roughly $21,000.
Harley-Davidson estimates it will pull in $33 million in revenue through electric motorcycle sales this year. But the company said total revenues could swell to $1.77 billion by 2026 and $3 billion by 2030, a bold estimate considering Davidson earned $3.26 billion in revenue last year.
Nevertheless, LiveWire's path to public markets could prove difficult. SPAC mergers, where investors buy publicly traded shares of one company, which later mergers with another company, ultimately bringing the latter public, have come under increasing scrutiny as more EV brands look to cash in on the growing hype surrounding the sector.
As a result, the SEC has taken an unprecedented interest in some of these deals, especially in light of recent debacles at Nikola whose founder is currently facing criminal charges for allegedly misleading investors.
For instance, luxury EV brand Lucid Motors was once billed as a SPAC success story; managing to come to market with a $20 billion valuation through one such deal. Nevertheless, earlier this month, Lucid was subpoenaed by the SEC regarding projections included in its initial bid to investors.
According to Roth Capital analyst Craig Irwin, despite the controversies surrounding SPAC's, LiveWire's example could prove illustrative for legacy automakers looking to launch their own electrified spinoffs.
"If anything, this underlines what we've been saying for a long time. Detroit, wake up! The train has left the station! EVs are inevitable," Irwin told Reuters. "Many traditional OEMs (Original equipment manufacturers) with emerging EV businesses can obviously do similar spinoff transactions," he added.
- 1.https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/harleys-electric-motorcycle-division-go-public-via-17-bln-spac-deal-2021-12-13/
- 2.https://investor.harley-davidson.com/news-releases/news-release-details/livewire-become-first-publicly-traded-ev-motorcycle-company-us
- 3.https://www.wsj.com/articles/harley-davidsons-electric-vehicle-division-to-go-public-via-spac-merger-11639404501
- 4.https://investor.harley-davidson.com/news-releases/news-release-details/livewire-become-first-publicly-traded-ev-motorcycle-company-us