Vietnam EV maker VinFast to list in U.S.
STORY: Vietnamese electric automaker VinFast said on Friday (May 12) it will list its shares in the United States.
This is via a merger with Hong Kong-based special purpose acquisition company Black Spade.
The move comes after the EV maker last month said it had received a fresh round of funding pledges worth $2.5 billion.
That came from parent company Vingroup, Vietnam's biggest conglomerate, and its founder, Pham Nhat Vuong, Vietnam's first billionaire and richest man.
In a joint statement, VinFast and Black Spade said that after the merger, the new entity will have an enterprise value of approximately $27 billion.
It said the deal is expected to close in the second half of 2023.
Existing shareholders of VinFast will hold approximately 99% of the shares of the combined company.
VinFast, which was founded in 2017, began selling EVs in California this year.
It previously filed for an initial public offering in the U.S. to list on the Nasdaq in December last year, aiming to raise about $60 billion.
The company has said it has almost 55,000 orders globally and is able to churn out 300,000 EVs per year.
