VinFast, a Vietnamese electric vehicle manufacturer, announced on Friday that it will list in the United States through a combination with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Black Spade Acquisition Co.

The move comes after the firm said last month that it had obtained $2.5 billion in new investment pledges from parent business Vingroup, Vietnam’s largest conglomerate, and founder Pham Nhat Vuong, Vietnam’s first billionaire and richest man.

The new firm will have an enterprise value of about $27 billion and an equity value of $23 billion after the merger, “assuming no BSAQ shareholders elect to have their Black Spade shares redeemed for cash as permitted,” according to a joint statement from VinFast and Black Spade.

The transaction is projected to completion in the second half of 2023, with existing VinFast shareholders holding around 99% of the merged company’s shares.

VinFast, which was created in 2017 and began selling EVs in California this year, had filed for an initial public offering in the United States to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “VFS” in December last year, aiming for a $60 billion valuation.

According to the company, it has around 55,000 orders worldwide and can produce 300,000 EVs each year.

According to its website, Black Spade Acquisition is a Hong Kong-based SPAC that will float on the NYSE in July 2021 with an intention to merge with a company ideally in the entertainment industry within two years.

According to the company’s website and Refinitiv, it was created by Black Spade Capital Limited, the private investment arm of Lawrence Ho, the CEO of Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd, which owns casinos in Macau and the Philippines.

“The partnership with Black Spade and listing of VinFast in the U.S. represents the perfect capital raising avenue for our future global ambitions,” Thuy Le, VinFast’s global chief executive, said.

VinFast’s decision to list through a special purpose acquisition company follows in the footsteps of EV businesses Microvast, Faraday Future, Nikola Corp, and Lucid, despite a cooling in the previously frenetic SPAC market, which has been subjected to increased scrutiny by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

SPACs are considered as a rapid path to the stock market, particularly for auto technology firms, and have proven popular with investors looking for Tesla-like stock prices – albeit the valuation of merged company frequently declines in the months following listing.

(Adapted from Investing.com)

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