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Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest man, in keeping with Forbes. Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH — the conglomerate behind luxurious manufacturers like Louis Vuitton, Hennessy, Bulgari, and many different manufacturers you see at overpriced airport boutiques — is. Bloomberg said Tuesday {that a} agency tied to LVMH will probably be merging with Lotus to take the carmaker public, presumably emboldened by Porsche going public in September. This would possibly, on paper, pit the world’s two richest folks in opposition to one another in a battle for the EV way forward for the world, since Lotus is all-in on EVs now, however that appears extra like a enjoyable thought train than actuality.
That’s partly as a result of Tesla and Geely-owned Lotus are attempting to do various things. Tesla is making an attempt to scale as much as promoting tens of millions and tens of millions of EVs, whereas Lotus is making an attempt to scale as much as merely promoting hundreds of vehicles. Further, Elon Musk is a little more concerned along with his automobile firm (regardless of the continued misadventure with Twitter) than Arnault could be. Bloomberg describes the agency Lotus is merging with, L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp, as, “the non-public fairness operations of Arnault’s luxury-goods powerhouse LVMH [that] mixed with the US funding agency Catterton in 2016,” which makes it sound like one thing that the world’s richest man in all probability forgot existed.
At any charge, L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp is definitely solely merging with Lotus Tech, which is the EV a part of Group Lotus. Lotus Tech is making the Eletre, the SUV you see above, which it calls “the world’s first electrical hyper-SUV.” Reuters also says that entities that already personal Lotus Tech, which is usually Geely and some different shareholders, will hold their stakes in Lotus Tech, and that stake will quantity to 89.7 p.c of the corporate after the merger with L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp.
Which makes me suppose that that is largely a money seize. Though, in the event you’ve ever dreamed of proudly owning inventory in Lotus, this may very well be your large probability. Reuters says that the mixed firm will checklist on the Nasdaq alternate, with the ticker image “LOT.” Someday, anyone would possibly even get round to mentioning it to the world’s richest man.
