The negotiations between Fisker and a major car manufacturer — mentionted to be Nissan — after a potential investment and the partnership has been terminated, a development that jeopardizes a separate short-term bailout funding effort.
Fisker disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday morning archiving that the automaker ended negotiations on March 22. He didn’t explain why. However, the company had to continue negotiations as part of one of the closing conditions for a potential $150 million convertible note announced last week. Fisker said in the filing that it will ask the unnamed investor to waive the closing condition.
The startup’s stock plunged 28% after the stock market opened and trading was halted.
It’s the latest in a string of ominous signs for the electric vehicle startup at risk. Fisker struggled to sell its Ocean SUV at first, underperforming its own domestic sales goals, as TechCrunch reported in January, and forcing it away from a direct sales model. Some of the cars delivered have been affected by a number of quality issues — ones that Fisker has, at times, struggled to resolve, according to internal documents.
In February, Fisker laid off 15% of its staff (about 200 people) and last week reported that it had just $121 million in the bank. The company halted production and warned investors that it would not survive a year without a new cash injection. Fisker has held talks with other automakers, including Mazda, but only Nissan has remained at the table recently.
Fisker said Monday morning that it is evaluating other “strategic alternatives” to the potential tie-up with Nissan, including “in or out-of-court restructurings, capital markets transactions (on market terms), repurchases, acquisitions, exchanges or other refinancing of the existing its debt, the possible issuance of equity securities, the possible sale of assets and businesses and/or other strategic transactions and/or other measures.”
