Volvo’s luxury sister Zeekr heads to Wall Street

The Chinese-Swedish electric car maker wants to list on the New York Stock Exchange in the coming weeks and is counting on a valuation of around $5 billion.

Zeekr owner Geely submitted the necessary paperwork to the American stock exchange authorities late on Friday evening. The Chinese group is therefore not ready for its test piece: Zeekr will already be the fourth brand from the group with its own listing. In addition to the eponymous Geely in Shanghai, the Swedish subsidiary Volvo Cars, Polestar and the British sports car brand Lotus also have freely tradable shares.

It is not the first time that Zeekr has attempted to get a listing on Wall Street. In December 2022, it wanted to raise $1 billion at a valuation of $10 billion: twice as much as now. The IPO was canceled at the last minute. Zeekr then referred to the poor stock market climate.

Zeekr is the youngest brand from the Geely stable. It was only founded in 2021 and sees itself as a premium brand, just like Volvo and Polestar, but above that. By designing and developing its models in Sweden, the brand hopes to mask its Chinese identity as much as possible. The European trade press praises the build quality and equipment of the Zeekrs, considering it one of the best of all Chinese brands.

In addition to China, Zeekr now also sells its cars in a number of classic European pioneer countries for electric brands: Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands. Sales will also start soon in France and Germany. Belgium is also on the wish list, but it is not much more concrete than the ambition ‘to be active throughout Europe by 2026’ at the moment.

Zeekr has sold just over 200,000 cars worldwide to date. The brand achieved a turnover of $7.3 billion last year, after which it made a heavy loss of $1.17 billion. That also explains the search for fresh capital.

For the time being, Zeekr’s range in Europe consists of two models: the sporty business estate 001 and the small electric SUV X. The latter shows many similarities with the EX30 from sister brand Volvo, which is very popular in our country. Since that model was delivered in Belgium, Volvo sales have increased by 40 percent.

Zeekr sells its cars in Europe online. In the Netherlands there is exactly one showroom (in Amsterdam) and one delivery center (in Zeist near Utrecht). Maintenance is done by external partners. The Zeekr

The placement of a stack of new shares on Wall Street should generate Zeekr 367.5 million dollars (341 million euros) of fresh money. Success seems assured: parent group Geely, the Israeli manufacturer of technology for robotaxis and the Chinese battery giant CATL have already agreed to contribute $349 million. This leaves $18.5 million in Zeekr shares for private investors.

With a price range of $18 to $21, Zeekr is valued by his parents at around $5 billion: more than half of the 8.6 billion euros that Volvo Cars is currently worth on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.

This makes Zeekr the largest IPO of a Chinese company on Wall Street in the past three years. Since the Chinese government tightened its grip on Chinese companies listed abroad in 2021, causing taxi app Didi, for example, to disappear from the New York Stock Exchange, most Chinese companies have shunned Wall Street.

The operation also underlines that 2024 promises to be a banner year for IPOs in the United States. In the past four months, 72 companies have already gone to Wall Street, raising $15.7 billion in fresh capital: twice as much as in all of 2023.

However, the question remains how strong investor interest in Zeekr will be. Electric car builders are having a hard time since growth in e-car sales stagnated last year, especially in the US and Europe. Brands that only sell electric cars, such as Tesla, were hit particularly hard.

In addition, investors have so far received little pleasure from the stock market careers of the Geely subsidiaries. Polestar’s share price is currently trading at $0.15: a decline of 85 percent compared to the value at which it was listed three years ago. Volvo Cars lost almost half of its valuation in its three-year stock market career. Lotus, which only went to Wall Street in February, has already lost half of its initial valuation.