What happened
Just what we always wanted for Christmas -- another electric-vehicle SPAC.
Yesterday, after close of trading, GigCapital3, Inc. (GIK +0.00%), a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), announced that it will merge the "urban commercial zero-emission vehicle company" Lightning eMotors. GigCapital3 stock immediately rocketed 14.5% in price once trading opened this morning, although it has since given up most of those gains and is now up just 2.5% as of 1:35 p.m. EST.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
If you've never heard of Lightning eMotors -- or GigCapital3 for that matter -- don't be embarrassed. Although founded 12 years ago, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, Lightning eMotors has changed its name a couple of times over the years and remains a largely unknown, privately owned company focused on producing "all-electric powertrains for delivery trucks, shuttle buses, passenger vans, chassis-cab models, passenger and cargo vans, step/food vans, cargo trucks and buses, and transit buses."
GigCapital3, meanwhile, is a shell company formed in Palo Alto just earlier this year for the purpose of acquiring some popular private company and bringing it public in an IPO -- hopefully making a bundle of money for its backers in the process. As such, it's a dime-a-dozen replica of several similar electric truck-focused SPACs that have tumbled onto the stock market this year.
Now what
GigCapital3 is hyping its latest EV IPO as a "leading innovator in the US commercial medium-duty Electric Vehicle market," "the market share leader in Class 3-7 zero-emission vehicles," and "the only manufacturer with a full line of battery and fuel cell zero-emission commercial vehicles on the road with blue-chip customers."
And like similar firms, GigCapital3 is attempting to get investors excited by using lots of big numbers: a "worldwide annual total addressable market of $67 billion," "20,000 medium duty commercial electric vehicles" expected to be produced "by 2025," and "$63 million" in projected 2021 revenue growing to "354 million" by 2022, then "$2 billion" in 2025.
There's not one word in the press release, however, about how much revenue Lightning eMotors is doing today -- and the word "profit" doesn't appear in the press release even once.
