Last September, Milan Design Week christened the new hypercar of Silk-Faw, the joint venture between Silk Ev (a Dublin-based company) and Faw, the largest Chinese car manufacturer in the hands of the state. The company is expected to open a factory in Gavassa, near Reggio Emilia. The racing car is called Hongqi S9 and is capable of touching 400 kilometers per hour as top speed, developing a power of 1,419 horsepower, with an 8-cylinder V engine, supported by two fully electric motors. Go from 0 to 100 km / h in just 1.9 seconds and the design was done by the Italian Walter De Silva, Silk-Faw Vice President of Styling and Design.
At the beginning of the year, on January 28th, Ideanomics, an American company listed on Wall Street which is currently closing the bid on Energica Motor in Piazza Affari (manufacturer of electric motorcycles in the Modena area), subscribed 15 million dollars of a convertible (unrated) issue of 65 million in total with an interest of 6%, placed by Silk EV Cayman LP (subsidiary of Silk Ev Dublin), maturing on January 28, 2022. The issuer is defined in a file of the SEC, the controlling body of the American Stock Exchange, as “a US / Italian automotive design and engineering services company, primarily engaged in the design, development and production of premium, high luxury and all-electric hypercar services.”
For its part, Silk EV explained to milanofinanza.it that, “like most multinational companies, we have created a common structure to allow us to operate globally, access global banking relationships, institutional relationships and capital markets at the global”.
In a few months, therefore, at the end of January, the Italian-Chinese super car could have Ideanomics as a partner. A $ 943 million Nasdaq listed group specializing in electric vehicles, which is part of the Russell 2000 index. The company was founded in 2004 by US businessman and wrestler Shane McMahon as China Broadband. Then it became Alpha Nutraceuticals, Alpha Nutra, Gallery Rodeo International, Seven Stars Cloud Group … it changed its name several times until it took over its current name four years ago. From the last balance of last June it is clear that the company recorded revenues of 33.22 million dollars, has a negative Ebitda (-10.15 million) and is expected to earn earnings per share by 2021 (source: WSJ Markets) of -0.46,
In June last year, lawyers from Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer and those from Berger Montague (Philadelphia) filed a suit on behalf of the investors in the New York Court. This is because on June 25, 2020, Hindenburg Research posted a series of tweets claiming that Ideanomics “is a blatant and obvious fraud”. Analysts wrote that they found evidence that Ideanomics “corrected the photos” in its press releases to suggest it owns or operates a vehicle sales center in Qingdao, China, when it is not.
In addition, according to the complaint, Hindenburg Research asked an investigator to travel to the alleged Ideanomics facility in Qingdao, where the practitioner was unable to find any trace of Ideanomics or its alleged Mobile Energy Global (MEG) division. There are several pending lawsuits, including recent ones, with Halper Sadeh LLP, for example, investigating whether the merger of Ideanomics and Via Motors International “is fair for Ideanomics shareholders”.
Three politicians expressed their views on the Silk-Faw issue, MEP Sabrina Pignedoli, Davide Zanichelli and Maria Edera Spadoni. According to which “recently Ideanomics was the protagonist of the failure of the project of a new stock exchange in Delaware, also financed with public money. Earlier in Connecticut its major shareholder, Bruno Wu, had launched with Ideanomics an imaginative high-tech business supported by 10 millions of public dollars, then ended up in nothing “. The name of Bruno Wu and at least one of his companies is also found in the Panama Papers, the politicians of the M5S write. “The origins of the capital that will be invested in Reggio Emilia are therefore lost in the maze of unfathomable trusts and offshore paradises. It is only a small part of the investment, but it is the only one so far traceable”.
As for Energica, the ongoing tender offer will be aimed at delisting and was announced at a price of 3.20 euros per share (the stock is still at 3.17) and 0.10 euros for the warrants. The offer price per share incorporates a premium of only 3% and 10% over the weighted average share value of the last month and the last six months, respectively. (All rights reserved)
