Amazon disclosed Friday that it owns a 20% stake in Rivian, the electrical automaker that filed for an IPO earlier this month.
As of September 30, the e-commerce large held fairness investments, together with most well-liked inventory of Rivian that represented about 20% possession curiosity, in accordance with the submitting. That holding had a “carrying worth” of $3.8 billion, up from $2.7 billion as of December 31, 2020.
The disclosure, which popped up in a regulatory filing, offers contemporary perception into how carefully Rivian’s future is tied to Amazon. Amazon has invested $1.345 billion into Rivian, in accordance with the EV maker’s preliminary public providing. Amazon additionally just lately bought $490 million value of convertible notes in Rivian that may convert to Class A shares after the IPO, pursuant to sure pricing provisions.
Amazon will not be solely an investor in Rivian; it’s additionally a buyer. In September 2019, Rivian entered into an settlement with Amazon to provide 100,000 electrical supply vans. Rivian disclosed earlier this month that it expects to ship at the least 10 autos within the month of December 2021. The entire vans (that may be the remaining 99,990) shall be delivered by 2025.
When Rivian’s preliminary public providing submitting first dropped it was clear that Amazon was an enormous a part of Rivian’s universe. As an illustration, there are 81 mentions of Amazon within the Rivian S-1 submitting, a excessive quantity resulting from Amazon’s twin standing as investor and buyer.
On the time, it appeared that Amazon owned at the least 5% of Rivian, although that remaining quantity was not but out there. The disclosure from Amazon exhibits that its stake is much bigger.
As TechCrunch has noted before, the corporate’s robust connection to Amazon is each a boon and a threat. Per Rivian’s S-1’s risk-factor part:
We anticipate that a good portion of our preliminary income shall be from one buyer that’s an affiliate of one among our principal stockholders. If we’re unable to keep up this relationship, or if this buyer purchases considerably fewer autos than we at the moment anticipate or none in any respect, our enterprise, prospects, monetary situation, outcomes of operations and money flows might be materially and adversely affected.
