Now Fisker is completely on the brink

(Elbil24): The car manufacturer Fisker is in a powerful storm at the moment, and is simply fighting to survive – for its own existence.

Elbil24 has mentioned the matter on several occasions, and now information has finally arrived from the company itself.

Only this week was the company able to deliver an annual report for 2023, a report that underlines its seriousness. At the same time, further information has come from the inside, as Henrik Fisker held a meeting with all the employees. Here he put into words the situation, and that with information that has not yet been known.

Four stakeholders

As Henrik Fisker has put his own name on the company, there is presumably a lot of prestige in making the company survive.

That in many ways it is his own governance that has put the company at risk is only a partial explanation, because he has received unwanted help from the animal times we are now in, and a market that has collapsed in several areas.

The fact that Fisker Ocean was not approved for government subsidies in the USA did not improve matters, and the car was no longer competitive in what must be considered to be Fisker’s largest market.

As we have previously discussed, the share has risen so sharply in price that it has been excluded from the stock exchange in New York, the NYSE. A minimum requirement there is that the price stays above $1, while Fisker Inc was at one point down to $0.002. It therefore had to go 500 times to get up to an acceptable level.

Solutions in sight

In the meeting with the employees, Henrik Fisker was able to talk about possible ways out, because as of today there are four car manufacturers who are in real negotiations about either a collaboration or an acquisition.

The challenge for Fisker is that the debt exceeds the company’s value many times over. At the same time, the value of the company will multiply by a solution.

Of course, he could not provide information on who the four are, as this is stock exchange-sensitive information, but he also had to say that a solution will take time, as it is up to the interested parties to find out whether they see the value in Fisker as great enough for them to will enter, or take over.

It also happens that Fisker is set up with small own assets. The company leases all property, they lease production capacity from Magna, and strictly speaking, only have one product to show, with several products on the drawing board.

The factory has the power

Magna has also had to inform the employees at the factory that 500 people will lose their jobs as a result of Fisker putting production on hold indefinitely.

Magna is also in a pinch, as they have been paid by Fisker in the form of shares in the company. These now have no value, and it is rumored that Magna may be the player who finally puts the hook on the door for Fisker Ocean by no longer being able to let a production line stand still for a long time, as this is also lost income.

But by putting the famous hook on the door, they also admit the loss of their assets in Fisker. Now it is the talks with the four car manufacturers that can decide Fisker’s future fate, and whether Fisker will continue to be Fisker, or whether there will be an acquisition of the few resources that are in Fisker, and that the company will otherwise be deleted.

Can go fast

For the roughly 5,000 customers who have already received cars, it is obviously an advantage if the company gets a further life, and although it does not necessarily have a direct connection to Fisker as a company, it also seems that Henrik and his wife Geeta are taking action in private to deal with the situation.

They recently put their house in Hollywood up for sale, for the tidy sum of 35 million dollars, i.e. almost NOK 400 million. But even this is a pittance to count in the financial malaise in which Fisker Inc now finds itself.

Should one of the four car manufacturers strike, much will be done, but Fisker has also put pressure on those concerned. Because if none of them has come up with a viable proposal for a solution within 30 days from when the annual report was presented, then Fisker will apply for a “Chapter eleven” – bankruptcy protection until the company is possibly restructured, if they can manage it.

In other words, we will know far more in three or four weeks.