Karl-Thomas Neumann (59) had never heard of this obscure financial trick with which companies can be brought to the stock market in flash mode. Until the ex-boss of Opel Steve Girsky (58) announced two years ago – formerly vice of the long-time Opel mother General Motors (GM).
Girsky wanted to put a vehicle on the stock exchange that was nothing but “an empty shell”, in jargon: a Special Purpose Acquisition Company, or SPAC for short, a placeholder company listed on the stock exchange. It only serves to merge it later with another real company, so that it is then, bang, on the stock exchange immediately. You can then quickly cash in or carry out a capital increase.
Neumann should help find the right company for the placeholder. He and Girsky finally struck gold in Phoenix, Arizona. The electric truck manufacturer Nikola, enthuses Neumann, is “a big story. Quite similar to Elon Musk. “
At the beginning of June, Girsky and Neumann put Nikola on the stock exchange via SPAC. The company was valued at a good 3 billion dollars, and less than a week later the value was over 30 billion dollars – more than ford. Since then, new manufacturers have been announcing that they want to follow Nikola almost every week. “At the moment there is a gold rush atmosphere,” says Neumann. “We started a real wave. Everyone says: Wow, Nikola. We do that too. “