Polestar faces Nasdaq delisting
In September 2021, Polestar announced its merger with Gores Guggenheim, a SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, which is a type of vehicle used to accelerate IPOs. In June 2022, the merged company made its stock market debut under the ticker symbol PSNY, bringing in $890 million for Polestar. Polestar was valued at $27.42 billion.
This significant discrepancy is due to the fact that only around 6 per cent of Polestar shares were freely traded, while 94 per cent remained with the Chinese automotive group Geely and its Swedish subsidiary Volvo Cars. And that was possibly Polestar’s birth defect, because free shareholders never had the prospect of having a significant say in Polestar, but could at best dream of dividends. However, since its inception, Polestar has consistently posted net losses and is not profitable, which is why there have never been any dividends for shareholders.
Accordingly, Polestar’s share price soon began to decline: while the price closed at $13 on the Nasdaq on June 24, 2022, the day of its initial listing, it then fell almost continuously. After the price had been below the critical US$1 mark for some time in 2024, Polestar received an initial request from Nasdaq to push the price up. In the meantime, the price did indeed stabilize above the mark again, but then fell below US$1 again in September 2025.
However, as Nasdaq regulations stipulate that traded company shares must be worth at least $1, the US technology exchange has now requested Polestar to take measures to support the share price and bring it back above $1, e.g. through share buybacks. If this is not achieved by April 29, 2026, Polestar will be given a further 180 days to achieve the target. If this is still not achieved, Nasdaq would initiate a delisting, i.e., exclude Polestar shares from trading.
This, in turn, would not necessarily spell the end for Polestar’s stock market listing: it would also be possible to switch to another stock exchange with less stringent rules. However, it might also be logical for Polestar’s main shareholders, Geely and Volvo Cars, to delist Polestar completely. This would eliminate costly reporting requirements for Polestar and stop the publicly visible devaluation of its shares. Of the $27.42 billion market capitalization at the time of the IPO, less than $2 billion of the company’s valuation remains today.
This article was originally published by Florian Treiß for electrive’s German edition.
0 Comments