Arrival allegedly on the verge of insolvency

The struggling British electric vehicle developer Arrival is apparently expecting to go bankrupt soon. The company has been struggling for some time and recently announced extensive layoffs.

As reported by Sky News, attempts to secure long-term financing through a sale or capital injection will likely fail. According to sources from the municipal sector, there is still hope, but Arrival is already in discussions with auditing firm EY about insolvency administration.

One of the reasons is that Arrival failed to comply with the US stock exchange’s transparency regulations. The stock exchange supervisory authority thus reprimanded the manufacturer at the beginning of January. Arrival went public in March 2021 through a merger with the stock exchange shell CIIG Merger Corp.

In March 2023, the British developer for electric commercial vehicles (including for ride-hailing services) seemed to be out of the woods. At that time, it secured a 300 million dollar equity financing line from Westwood Capital, which promised the company access to additional liquidity under certain conditions. At the same time, Igor Torgov, who had previously been an executive, was appointed CEO and half of all employees were made redundant.

“I have come into the business as CEO at a critical time. Arrival has developed innovative technologies and know-how which position us strongly to address the considerable EV market opportunity,” Torgov said when he took on his new role last year. “Looking forward, we will continue developing and validating our vehicles this year. We are also progressing with encouraging conversations with potential partners and investors to effect the next stage of the business plan – bringing Vans into production in Charlotte in late 2024.”

But business has taken a different turn. Arrival’s share price plummeted by 95 per cent in 2023, and its vehicles have yet to make it to commercial production – despite well-known early supporters such as Hyundai-Kia, UPS, and Uber.

Update 06 February 2024

It is official – British electric vehicle developer Arrival is bankrupt. The insolvency administrators are now examining options for the sale of the company’s business and assets, including the electric vehicle platform, software, intellectual property and R&D assets, for the benefit of creditors.

news.sky.com, gcs-web.com (update)