Ford sold the majority of its Rivian shares, reducing its stake from 9.49% to as little as 1.15%, a week after reporting a $7.3 billion write-down on its investment in the EV startup. The news caused Rivian’s shares to drop by 2.29% on Friday, with Ford’s shares dropping by a more substantial 8%.
According to CNBC, Ford sold a total of 91 million Rivian shares in 2022, which were worth around $3 billion. For a good measure, Ford’s current 1.15% stake in Rivian – an impressive drop from the original 12% stake in 2021 – represents 10.5 million shares.
Despite the fact that Rivian lost 70% of its value between February 2022 and February 2023, Ford still made a substantial profit compared to its initial investment of $1.2 billion.
Read: Rivian Loses A Number Of High-Ranking Executives
Ford, one of the early investors in Rivian alongside Amazon, initially planned on using its skateboard platform for its own vehicles. Those plans were scrapped in late 2021, with the US-based automaker making heavier R&D investments for electrification in 2022 and separating its EV business unit. Last year, CEO Jim Farley expressed potential interest in selling Rivian shares with their value at the time had increased sevenfold since Ford’s initial investment.
Last year Rivian produced 24,337 vehicles, falling short of the targeted 25,000 units. The EV maker is reportedly reducing its workforce by 6%, after growing from a headcount of 1,200 in 2019 to around 14,000 in 2021, and recently lost a number of high-ranked executives. In the next years, Rivian needs to fulfill a high number of orders for its R1T pickup and R1S SUV from North American clients, as well as the large order for Amazon’s electric delivery van fleet.
