Churchill Capital Corp. IV (NYSE:CCIV) closed Tuesday down 8% after a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing shed additional light on its merger with Lucid Motors. CCIV stock is also under pressure as bearish sentiment around special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) mounts.
On January 11, Bloomberg reported that Churchill Capital was in business talks with Lucid Motors. However, yesterday CCIV filed an S-4 with the SEC detailing its merger negotiations with Lucid Motors. In that filing, the company said:
“… at the time the article was published, Churchill and Lucid had not had any discussions with respect to a potential business combination. Subsequent to the Bloomberg article, Churchill began exploring a possible business combination with Lucid due to its interest in the electric vehicle industry.” [emphasis added]
This dramatically revises the narrative of those merger negotiations and has investors understandably uncertain. Previously, merger negotiations had appeared drawn out, giving the impression that the companies were having difficulty finding common ground, perhaps contributing to volatility in CCIV stock over the past months.
Between the January 11 Bloomberg article and the official announcement of the merger on February 22, CCIV stock rocketed from $10 to $57. Churchill quickly gave up most of those gains in the days immediately following the merger announcement, settling under $31 by February 24.
However, the new timeline from the company’s S-4 filing suggests that merger negotiations with Lucid happened remarkably fast. In fact, it took just 12 days from the Bloomberg article to the companies executing a letter of intent (LOI).
While this might seem to be positive news, it’s hard to say investors will reward CCIV stock for the confusion. Plus, the news comes at an inauspicious time for CCIV stock, which has been sliding for the past week. Just today, InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall said CCIV remains overvalued after a 60% plunge.
Lucid Motors announced on Sunday it plans to expand into the energy storage space. CCIV stock saw significantly lower trading volume of 22.58 million trades today, compared with an average daily trade volume of 51.69 million.
On the date of publication, Vivian Medithi did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
