Investors say Geely's Zeekr offer is too low
Okay, so get this: a bunch of early investors in Zeekr, you know, that fancy electric car company from China's Geely? Yeah, well, they're kinda annoyed.
Apparently, Geely offered to buy back Zeekr for $2.2 billion, but these investors, like big names such as CATL, Intel Capital, and Boyu Capital, are saying that's way too low. They even wrote letters to the company and this special group that's looking at the offer. They feel like Geely isn't giving Zeekr a fair shake with that price.
It's a bit weird, right? Geely, who owns famous brands like Volvo, just offered to take Zeekr private pretty soon after it went public in the US. This whole thing has people wondering about other Geely companies that were maybe thinking about going public too.
The investors who are speaking up were part of Zeekr's first big fundraising round. Back then, in 2021, they put in $500 million, and Zeekr was valued at $9 billion. Then, in 2023, it was valued even higher at $13 billion. But when it went public in the US a year later, the value was less than half of that, only $5.5 billion. So, I guess you can see why they're not thrilled with Geely's offer, which values Zeekr at just $6.5 billion. They think Zeekr is doing better than other similar companies, so the offer should be higher.
Geely says they're still talking with that special group about the offer. It's not a done deal yet, you know? They need to sign some official papers first.
Geely's boss, Eric Li, has been trying to make the company more focused and save money, especially because there's a tough price war in the car market in China. Zeekr is actually doing pretty well, selling more cars and even beating out BYD's premium brand, Denza. The investors are saying this deal should only happen if most of the other shareholders who aren't Geely agree to it. Someone else, a company called Y2 Capital, who invested in Zeekr's IPO, is also apparently sending similar letters.
Geely's offer was a bit more than the average share price before the offer, but it's still less than what you usually see in these kinds of deals in the US. Even though Zeekr's shares are trading a little higher than the offer price right now, Geely might have enough votes to make this happen anyway because they own a big chunk of Zeekr.
