Volvo’s IPO now values the Swedish car maker at LESS than its Polestar offspring

Volvo has cut the size of its stock market listing to the bottom of the price range, valuing Volvo at less than the SPAC for Polestar.

No one can doubt how well Volvo has done since Geely grabbed the ailing Swedish car maker from Ford, with a great range of cars and rising sales, even during the Covid nonsense.

Now, Volvo is planning to list on the stock exchange in Sweden, and despite its strong performance it seems to be struggling a bit to get investors onboard.

Initially, Volvo hoped to list at the top end of the range of 53 and 68 Swedish Kronor, but clearly there has been no appetite for the higher end and Volvo will now launch on the market a day late – Friday 29th – at 53 Swedish Kroner, valuing the entire company at around £13 billion.

Not only is the share price a lot lower than Volvo hoped, but majority shareholder Geely has had to drop plans to retain its favourable voting shares too to placate investors concerned about Chinese control, although even with the sop on voting rights Geely will still hold 84 per cent of Volvo’s shares and voting rights.

It all seems slightly bonkers when Polestar – a recent spin-off from Volvo – which manages to flog only 10,000 cars a year at the moment is valued at more than Volvo, but that perhaps has much to do with traditional makers of ICE cars worrying investors despite Volvo’s all-electric plans already in place.