What happened
One day after luxury electric vehicle start-up Lucid Group (LCID 7.30%) popped by 1.5% on news of a partnership with Aston Martin, Lucid shares are moving higher again on Tuesday -- up another 3.4% through 11:30 a.m.
You can thank Saudi Arabia for that.
NASDAQ: LCID
Key Data Points
So what
In a Schedule 13D filing with the SEC, which came out last night but was reported by The Fly only this morning, Lucid revealed that the Saudi Arabian public investment fund known as Ayar Third Investment Company bought 265,693,703 shares of Lucid stock in a private placement. The total purchase price of approximately $1.8 billion works out to an average price of $6.77 per share -- or about $1 a share over what Lucid stock costs today.
As a result of this stock sale, which took place on June 22, Saudi Arabia now owns roughly 65% of Lucid Group stock -- up from 60% before this latest purchase.
Now what
This is a big vote of confidence by the Saudis in Lucid -- a company that has grown to $700 million in annual sales, but has yet to earn a profit, and in fact reported $2 billion in losses over the last 12 months.
Saudi Arabia's additional investment doesn't cover quite all of those recent losses. Worse, it falls short, by about half, of replacing the cash that Lucid Group burned over the past year. (Lucid Group's trailing free cash flow is at negative $3.7 billion). But it does suggest that for the time being at least, the nation's investment fund is willing to financially support Lucid as it works toward profitability, and this may be giving investors some reassurance today.
The question is: How long is Saudi Arabia willing to maintain this level of support?
According to analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, Lucid Group isn't likely to be self-supporting (generating positive free cash flow) or profitable before 2027 at the earliest, and the company will need to go from $700 million a year in sales to more than $10.7 billion in order to reach that point. While the investment fund certainly has the resources to help Lucid reach the point, it remains to be seen whether they have the patience.
