World’s richest man
Elon Musk is no longer the richest man in the worldaccording to Forbes. Bernard Arnault, Chairman of LVMH — them conglomerate behind luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Hennessy, Bulgari and many more brands you see in overpriced airport shops — is. Bloomberg said tuesday that a firm linked to LVMH will merge with Lotus to take over the car manufacturer public, presumably emboldened by Porsche made public in September. This could, on paper, pit the two richest people in the world against each other in a battle over the future of electric vehicles in the world, since Lotus is all about electric vehicles nowbut it feels more like a fun thinking exercise than reality.
World’s richest man
That’s partly because Tesla and Geely-owned Lotus are trying to do different things. Tesla is trying to move to selling millions and millions of electric vehicles, while Lotus tries to switch to simply selling thousands of cars. Moreover, Elon Musk is a bit more involved in his car business (despite the ongoing misadventure with Twitter) than Arnault would be. Bloomberg describe the Lotus company merges with, L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp, as, “tThe private equity operations of Arnault’s luxury giant, LVMH [that] combined with the American investment company Catterton in 2016”, which gives the impression that the richest man in the world has probably forgotten existence.
World’s richest man
Anyway, L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp is just merging with Lotus Tech, which is the EV part of the Lotus Group. Lotus Tech makes the Eletre, the SUV you see above, which it calls “the world’s first electric hyper-SUV.” Reuters also said that entities that already own Lotus Tech, which is primarily Geely and a few other shareholders, will retain their stakes in Lotus Tech, and that stake will amount to 89.7% of the company after the merger with L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp.
World’s richest man
Which makes me think it’s mostly a cash grab. JHowever, if you have ever dreamed of owning Lotus shares, this could be your big chance. Reuters indicates that the merged company will be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, with the symbol “LOT”. One day, someone might even tell the richest man in the world about it.
