Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Vanguard Group, one of the world’s largest investment advisors, has been consistently increasing its stake in Nikola Corporation since the company’s initial public offering (IPO) in 2020 and the first quarter of 2024 was no exception.
Nikola‘s stock, which has started trading through a reverse merger with special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) VectorIQ Holdings on June 4, 2020, is currently trading at $0.4959 — less than one cent above the recent all time low.
According to the latest form, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares (VTSMX) ended the first quarter holding 34,512,078 shares of Nikola. Based on Friday’s closing price of $0.4959, the position is now valued at $17.11 million.
VTSMX initially bought 4.2 million shares in late 2020 and has significantly expanded its holdings through multiple acquisitions, now owning 34.5 million shares. After adding 5.5 million shares in the third quarter of 2023 and another 8.71 million shares in the fourth quarter, the fund added 53,231 shares earlier in the first quarter.
By the end of last year, Nikola‘s institutional shareholders were holding about 200 million shares although the number has more than doubled to 450 million shares last month, according to Fintel data.
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In an escalation of his ongoing legal battles, Trevor Milton, the founder of the electric vehicle startup Nikola Corporation, announced this weekend via social media that he has filed a multibillion-dollar derivative and malpractice lawsuit. The lawsuit targets the company’s directors and Chief Legal Officer Britton Worthen.
Milton, who stepped down as chairman in 2020 amid allegations of fraud, asserted in his post that the controversial video showing a Nikola truck rolling down a hill—purportedly to falsely demonstrate its functionality—was orchestrated by Worthen.
Both electric vehicle companies Nikola and Workhorse will be removed from the Russell 3000 Index, according to the official preliminary list of additions and deletions posted by FTSE Russell.
The Russell 3000 Index measures the performance of the 3,000 largest publicly traded companies in the U.S. by market capitalization.
A few minutes after the market close on Wednesday, Nikola announced on X that the shareholders approved all proposals including the controversial reverse stock split. As of the time of writing, the stock price of the manufacturer is trading 6 percent lower following the news.
Nikola has recently published its financial results for the first quarter of year reporting a decline in total revenues and a non-GAAP net loss per share of $0.09. The company produced 43 trucks in the first quarter of which 40 were shipped.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
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The post Nikola’s Institutional Ownership Peaks as Vanguard Fund Increases Position first appeared on EV.