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Lordstown chose Endurance for its fully electric truck.
Kindness Lordstime
Lordstown Motors
reported quarterly numbers Wednesday night. Earnings don’t matter much, since the electric truck manufacturer still doesn’t sell anything. But the expenses are real – and investors are paying attention to that, especially after a few rocky days for stocks.
Lordstown (ticker: RIDE) expects to spend between $ 250 million and $ 275 million this year on capital equipment, preparing the plant it bought from General Motors (GM) to produce its electric truck called Endurance. The company also expects to spend another $ 220 million on expenses. That would leave Lordstown with about $ 200 million by the end of 2021.
Expenditures look higher than expected on Wall Street, based on aggregate Bloomberg projections. Higher-than-expected cash outflows are likely to put pressure on the stock on Thursday. Shares fell by about 3.8% when trading after the program.
However, it is difficult to say exactly what will happen to the share price. Shares have already fallen by about 15% on Friday, when a short seller published a negative research report on Lordstown. Hindenburg Research has claimed that the company’s delays are not as solid as investors believe. Lordstown reports more than 100,000 pre-orders for his electric truck.
The company issued a brief statement on Monday, saying only that management knew the report and would respond in a timely manner. Lordstown also said and repeated on Wednesday the launch of its earnings that it is about to start producing Endurance in September.
Management talked a little more about the short seller’s report on the earnings conference call. “We also received a request for information from the SEC and we are cooperating with that investigation,” said CEO Steve Burns. “In addition, the Management Board has set up a special committee to examine these issues.”
Investors will have to wait to get more clarity on the issues raised in the negative report. Until then, they will follow the chronology of the development of Endurance.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]