What happened
Shares of Churchill Capital IV (CCIV) have been rising steadily for the past month since a report by Bloomberg on Jan. 11 that the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) was in talks to merge with luxury electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors.
The stock is up more than 160% since then, including a bounce of 10.5% on Friday as of 9:45 a.m. EST.
So what
Today's surge comes after an update on the Bloomberg Terminal financial data network last night, saying:
A consortium led by Venrock Associates proposed to sell Lucid Motors Inc to Churchill Capital Corp IV. The transaction was proposed on 01/11/2021. Financial terms of the transaction are unknown.
Venrock Associates is a venture capital firm that has been invested in Lucid Motors since 2009 when Lucid was named Atieva. It focused on battery technologies before pivoting to designing and building its Lucid Air luxury electric sedan.
Lucid Air electric luxury sedan. Image source: Lucid Motors.
Now what
Investors believe Lucid has much promise with its base model Air Pure sedan, a competitor to Tesla's Model S, listed at $69,900. Pricing tops out at $161,500 for the Air Dream Edition that is scheduled to be available this spring.
There is still no definitive agreement on a merger between Churchill Capital IV and Lucid. If it does come to fruition at the $15 billion valuation Bloomberg reported, the run in Churchill Capital IV shares will force investors to buy at the equivalent of more than a $50 billion market capitalization for the publicly traded automaker at today's share price. That's something to consider if you are looking to invest at this point, along with the downside risk should the SPAC not fulfill a merger agreement.
