Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) yesterday said it is on track to debut its shares on the NASDAQ by the end of this quarter through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company Poema Global Holdings Corp.
The Taoyuan-based electric scooter maker and battery swapping service provider made the comments after it gained Hero Motocorp, Engine No. 1 and other investors in the middle of last month, raising its oversubscribed private investment in public equity from US$257 million to US$285 million.
“We are working through due diligence for [the US Securities and Exchange Commission]. We should complete it, we hope, in the first week of March,” Gogoro chief financial officer Bruce Aitken told an online news conference. “We are on track to complete the overall transaction by the end of the first quarter. It is our goal.”
Photo: Tyrone Siu, Reuters
Gogoro shares would be listed on the NASDAQ under the stock symbol “GGR.”
Asked what attracted it to Gogoro, Engine No. 1 portfolio manager Edward Sun said that when he first met Gogoro founder and chief executive officer Horace Luke (陸學森) in 2017, Gogoro mostly focused on making hardware, or electric scooters.
Sun said he thought it might be too risky to bet on an electric scooter maker, but he became interested after Gogoro strategically shifted its business model to capitalize on selling green energy by subscription.
“Subscription is a high-margin business and is something sustainable,” he said.
The battery swapping service offered by Gogoro is a better solution than traditional charging methods, Sun said.
Furthermore, Gogoro’s new business model is “almost like the Android of the electric scooter world,” as it is forming partnerships with other vehicle makers, Sun said.
Those partnerships in China, India and Southeast Asia would greatly increase Gogoro’s chances of penetrating these emerging markets, he said.
The market size in China, India and Southeast Asia combined is 80 times larger than the market in Taiwan, he said, adding that in India, 82 percent of all vehicles are two wheelers, while the figure in Indonesia is even higher at 90 percent.
Gogoro last month said that it has teamed up with Electrum to build an electric vehicle ecosystem in Indonesia, the third-largest two-wheel vehicle market in the world, with a focus on two-wheel vehicles and developing a high-efficiency battery.
In China, Gogoro is partnering with China’s biggest scooter maker, Yadea Technology Group Co (雅迪科技集團), and Jiangmen Dachangjiang Group Co (大江集團).
Gogoro also plans to expand its reach into New Delhi by teaming up with Hero MotoCorp Ltd, India’s biggest motorcycle maker.
As an activist firm, Engine No. 1 helped ExxonMobil Corp and General Motors in slashing global carbon dioxide emissions, but Sun did not disclose any substantial plan to accelerate Gogoro’s decarbonization.
Engine No. 1 in May last year won a campaign to replace three seats on the board of Exxon Mobil, but it has no plan to take any seats on Gogoro’s board.
“Gogoro has a strong board. There is no reason to take a board seat,” Sun said.
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS