The American all-electric automaker, Tesla, unveiled a $5 billion capital raise today. This is the third such move made by the company in the span of past ten months.
The Elon Musk-led automaker is capitalizing on the most recent opportunity, as the company’s shares have been on a rapid rise. The automaker’s shares hit record high on Monday, and soared over 670% this year, even though they fell over 2% before the start of regular trading today. The capital raise follows a similar issue of $5 billion shares in September and $2 billion shares in February.
The company has entered an equity distribution agreement with banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup Global Markets to sell its common stock, and the sales of its stock will total up to $5 billion. According to a regulatory filing, the sale is being made through an “at-the-market” offering program, which essentially means that the stock will be sold over time at prevailing market prices.
According to Joel Levington, a Bloomberg Intelligence credit analyst, the latest capital raise could help Tesla’s cash balance reach $20 billion mark. As Bloomberg notes, the new amount raised will help the American automaker achieve its plans of doubling its capital-expenditures budget during the next two years, which the company had announced in October.
Founded in 2003, the company has profoundly changed since its inception: from being an experiment of sorts, with only an electric sports car to offer, to becoming one of the most well-known and respected electric automakers in the market which has offerings spanning from regular sedans to SUVs to even a light duty truck (Cybertruck).
Tesla’s global operations have been running smoothly. Towards the end of November, it even received China’s approval to sell its Model Y in the country, which will be produced in its Shanghai Gigafactory. The company also reported its fifth consecutive profitable quarter this October, and the automaker is expected to be included in the S&P 500 Index. All of this has greatly contributed to the company’s rising reputation, and along with that, its shares.
Tesla has especially seen tremendous success this year, as the company became the world’s most valuable carmaker, beating the previous title-holder Toyota. In November, the increase in the company’s share led to the automaker being valued at more than half a trillion dollars. This, at the same time, helped CEO Elon Musk beat Bill Gates to become the second richest person in the world.
