Geely's Lowball Offer for Zeekr? Investors Speak Up
So, word on the street is that some folks who put money into Zeekr, China's fancy electric car brand, aren't too happy with the offer Geely made to take it private. Apparently, they think Geely is trying to buy it back on the cheap! These investors, and there are five of them who were in on Zeekr's very first funding round, have actually sent letters to the company and a special committee they set up.
They're basically saying the price is way too low and doesn't show how much Zeekr is really worth. You know Geely, right? They're the big Chinese automaker that owns cool brands like Volvo and Proton. They offered to buy back the rest of Zeekr earlier this month, saying they want to make it a bigger part of Geely Auto. Geely Auto already owns a big chunk of Zeekr, like two-thirds! Both companies are part of the even bigger Geely Holding.
This whole thing kind of surprised everyone, especially since Zeekr just went public in the U.S. a year ago. It also makes you wonder about the other companies Geely is getting ready to list, and maybe even if they'll take their other U.S. listed companies private too, like Polestar. Two of the other investors who wrote letters are Bilibili and Cathay Fortune Corp. Geely's spokesperson said they're still talking with Zeekr's special committee, but the other companies didn't say anything, and Bilibili said no comment.
Geely's offer isn't set in stone yet, so it's not a done deal until they sign the final papers. It seems like Geely's big boss, Eric Li, is trying to change things up. He wants to focus the group and cut costs because the car market in China is super competitive right now. He even started a campaign last year to make things simpler and stop their own brands from competing with each other. They've already put their brands into two groups and combined some teams.
Right now, Zeekr is seen as Geely's best bet. They sold over 41,000 cars in the first few months of this year, which is a 25% jump from last year! They even sold more cars than BYD's premium brand, Denza. The investors who are upset said in their first letter that Geely's offer values Zeekr at just $6.5 billion. They think that's way less than other companies like Li Auto, Nio, and Xpeng are worth.
They also said Zeekr is actually doing better with its money and making more profit than those other companies. So, they really want the deal to only happen if most of the other shareholders who aren't Geely agree to it. I heard the investors sent another letter this week, saying the same thing and telling Zeekr's committee to really look at the offer closely. These five investors put in $500 million back in 2021 when Zeekr was worth $9 billion. They had a 6% stake back then. Later, in 2023, Zeekr was valued even higher at $13 billion, but then when it went public a year later, it was valued at only $5.5 billion! That's less than half! I also heard that another investor, Y2 Capital, who bought shares when Zeekr went public, sent a similar letter to Geely saying they were worried. Y2 Capital didn't respond when asked about it.
Geely's offer is about $25.66 per share, which is about 24% more than the average price in the four weeks before they made the offer. But, to be honest, the average premium for deals like this in the U.S. has been closer to 40% since last year. Interestingly, Zeekr's shares are actually trading higher than the offer price right now, closing at $26.59 recently. However, some experts think Geely might have enough votes to make the privatization happen without needing other shareholders to agree since they already own 65.7% of Zeekr. What do you think will happen?
