Karma News: Two Suitors Bidding For Fisker

[William Maley]

By William Maley

Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com

May 26, 2013

Two groups are trying to get their hands on what remains of Fisker Automotive.

Group one is VL Automotive (the fine folks who are planning to make the Destino) and China's Wanxiang Group have put in a joint bid of around $20 million, a far cry from Fisker Automotive's almost $2 billion estimate from a investor document filing obtained by Reuters.

As we reported earlier this month, Lutz said that VL Automotive could with Fisker's suppliers to keep the Karma in production, but that could become a logistics nightmare.

"I want Fisker to live and succeed, if only to ensure a continuing supply of Karma bodies for my and my parter's (sic) VL Destino, a de-electrified Karma with a Corvette drive train, for which there is brisk demand," Lutz wrote in a blog piece for Forbes.com in April.

The second group is a investment group being led by Hong Kong billionaire and Fisker investor Richard Li. This group got a huge boost this past week when founder and former CEO, Henrik Fisker joined the group. Sources say the group is offering between $25 to $30 million.

Source: Reuters, 2, 3

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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[ocnblu]

Mr. Lutz, you have my love and respect, but this is a bad investment, sir.

[Drew Dowdell]

Regardless of what you think of the powertrain, $20m for $2b worth of assets is not a bad investment.

[G. David Felt]

I totally agree with you Ocnblu, while the body is striking, this is a poor investment.

The only way I can see this working is if he buys the company and then moves to use the technology to hybrid large full size Trucks and SUV's. Then they can focus on the body for his corvette powered car.

[Drew Dowdell]

Think about it from Lutz's perspective. He'd be paying $20m for the intellectual property of basically a fully developed car that can be built with LS1 power OR Hybrid power PLUS a nearly nearly developed, very sexy, 3-series sized sedan that can be conventionally powered as well or offered in a hybrid in the upper trims. For $20m... what's not to like? Lutz would finally get his own car company!

[G. David Felt]

Interesting info you add Drew. Glad to hear there is more to this company. It does make me rethink the deal. Would be worthwhile then for Lutz to pick it up cheap and keep it an American brand.

[GMTruckGuy74]

Go Lutz!! I'll take an Atlantic with the 3.6L V6 engine and six-speed auto trans