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Nicola Tree FCEV2
Courtesy: Nicola
Heavy truck maker Nikola will find out later Thursday whether its shareholders have approved its plan to raise money by selling more shares.
Nikola hopes to raise more capital to help ramp up production of its new heavy-duty fuel cell electric truck, which is set to launch later this month. But before it can sell additional shares to raise funds, it needs to increase the total number of shares it is authorized to issue to 1.6 billion from 800 million. This step requires shareholder approval.
Nikola first floated the plan to its shareholders at its annual meeting in June. While 77% of those who voted in favor of the proposal, not enough shares voted for the proposal to pass. Nikola is incorporated in Delaware, and under that state law, at least half of the total outstanding shares of a company’s common stock must vote in favor of a share increase proposal.
The company has postponed its annual meeting for a month in an effort to get more of its shareholders to cast a vote. The meeting will resume at 4:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, at which time Nikola will reveal whether the motion has passed — or whether it will be adjourned again to try to get more shareholders to vote.
This is not the first time that Nikola has had to postpone a shareholder meeting to drum up more votes to propose selling new shares. Last year’s annual meeting was postponed three times before Nikola won enough votes to bring the total shares outstanding to 800m from 600m.
Nikola said Wednesday that it built 33 battery-powered Tre semitrucks in the second quarter and delivered 45 to its dealers. Its dealers sold 66 trucks to customers during the period, and a total of 99 since the beginning of 2023.
Nikola said May 9 that it was suspending production of the electric Tre battery to focus on launching the fuel cell version of the Tre, which has a much longer range. At the time, it said 12 fleet customers had ordered a total of 140 of the upcoming fuel cell trucks.
Nikola is building a network of hydrogen refueling stations to support upcoming fuel cell trucks. On Tuesday, it said the California Transportation Commission awarded it a $41.9 million grant to build six of those stations in Southern California, in cooperation with the state Department of Transportation.
Nikola is expected to report second-quarter results in early August.
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