Geely's Zeekr Takeover: Investors Say Price Too Low
So, get this... China's Geely is trying to buy back its fancy electric car company, Zeekr, for about $2.2 billion. But, like, some of the early investors are saying that's way too low! Five of them, including big names like CATL and Intel Capital, sent letters to the Zeekr board saying the price just doesn't show how much Zeekr is really worth.
They invested in Zeekr way back when, and they think Geely is lowballing them. Geely, you know, the company that owns Volvo and Proton? Yeah, that one. They wanna merge Zeekr completely into Geely Auto. This whole thing is kinda surprising because Zeekr just went public in the US only a year ago! It makes you wonder about other Geely companies trying to go public in Hong Kong, like this ride-hailing company called CaoCao. And maybe even if they'll take other US-listed units, like Polestar, private too? It's all a bit up in the air, tbh.
The folks at Geely said they're still talking with a special group at Zeekr about the offer. But yeah, it's not a done deal yet. Geely's boss, Eric Li, is trying to make the company more focused and save money. He even merged some teams working on digital stuff in cars. They see Zeekr as their best thing right now. Sales are up for Zeekr, even beating out BYD's fancy cars! The investors who are complaining say Zeekr is doing better with cash and making money than other electric car companies out there, like Li Auto and Nio. They think the deal shouldn't happen unless most of the smaller, independent shareholders agree.
They sent two letters, just to be clear â one last week and another this week! They invested $500 million in Zeekr a while back when it was worth $9 billion. Then later it was worth $13 billion. But when it went public, it was only valued at $5.5 billion. Wild, right? Someone else who invested when Zeekr went public, Y2 Capital, also sent a letter saying they're worried. Geely's offer is 24% more than Zeekr's average share price before the offer, but apparently, the usual extra amount for these kinds of deals is more like 40%. Zeekr shares are actually trading higher than the offer price right now! But maybe, just maybe, Geely has enough votes since they own like 65.7% of Zeekr to do it anyway?
