RALEIGH – VinFast, its merger with Black Spade designed to take the company public next week and generate as much as $23 billion, is looking to raise investor interest and will have executives in New York on Aug. 15 to ring the Nasdaq opening bell. But will the IPO be a success?

WRAL News’ Ashley Rowe spoke with veteran tech and securities attorney Jim Verdonik in Raleigh. The cofounder of Innovate Capital Law, is skeptical. He’s been through many fund raising efforts, IPOs as well as mergers and acquisitions.

Jim Verdonik

Here’s what he told Rowe:

  • “I’m very skeptical about their ability to do this unless they bring a lot of new money from new investors to the table. They kind of threw up their hands and said we’re going to rush into this market, be public, without new money.”
  • “I’m just kind of praying the government is being careful about how much money the government is spending.”
  • “I’m hoping the state government is being careful about not over-building that site until VinFast raises the money that assures us the factory is going to be turning out cars for a long long time. And that means good cars.”
  • “They’re trying to get a high value for the stock. They didn’t do the PIPEs [private investment in public equity funding process] I suspect because nobody would pay the high valuation for the stock. So, they were kind of forced into this.”

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  • “My fear is there’s going to be a lot of shortselling which means the price will go down. And remember that $23billion of equity value is just a share price of the SPAC [$10] times the number of fully diluted shares. It’s not a price that has been tested in reality.”
  • “When they open for trading on Nasdaq you will have the first test of that $23 billion number.“
  • “North Carolina investors I would say if you’re going to invest in this, do it with your play money, not with your retirement money. OK. So I’m not saying it’s a bad investment, I’m just kind of saying until the dust settles don’t speculate with money that you really need.”
  • “I just hope that the governor and the secretary of commerce are looking at this thing closely and that we’re not on the hook for too many dollars expended to improve a site for a factory that either will never be built or may be built but is not going to be producing cars for a long time because the company does not have financial resources.”