Electric vehicle start-up Fisker surges 13% in NYSE debut

Shares of electric vehicle start-up Fisker Inc. closed up 13% in the company’s public debut Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

The stock jumped as much as 19% before closing at $10.14 a share. It began trading Friday after finalizing a reverse merger this week with Spartan Energy Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, backed by Apollo Global Management.

California-based Fisker is among a growing group of speculative electric vehicle start-ups going public through deals with SPACs, which have become a popular way of raising money on Wall Street because they have a more streamlined regulatory process than traditional initial public offerings.

SPAC stocks typically get an initial pop after the deal is announced but tend to underperform the broader market in the long run, according to Goldman Sachs. Share prices of Lordstown Motors, another electric vehicle company brought public through a SPAC, initially popped in its Nasdaq debut Monday but were down 28.3% for the week.

The SPAC deal was expected to provide Fisker with more than $1 billion to bring its first product, the Fisker Ocean, to production in late 2022. The company earlier this month said auto supplier Magna International will supply the vehicle platform and build the Ocean.

As part of the deal, Magna will receive warrants to purchase a stake of up to 6% in Fisker, worth about $3 billion, Reuters reported.

The automotive start-up was founded by Henrik Fisker, a well-known auto designer and executive whose previous green car company, Fisker Automotive, filed for bankruptcy in 2013. Fisker is credited with designing the BMW Z8 and Aston Martin DB9.