Iveco Group to assume full ownership of the joint venture with Nikola in Europe
Now, Iveco Group "will concentrate on Europe for the further development and commercialisation of its own battery electric and fuel cell electric trucks, which includes rolling out its financing business model GATE, and Nikola will focus its operations in North America".
As announced a few hours ago, Iveco Group is about to assume full ownership of the joint venture with Nikola in Europe. The original agreement was established back in 2019 and brought to the development of the first Nikola BEV and FCEV trucks based on the Iveco S-Way truck model.
Now, Iveco Group “will concentrate on Europe for the further development and commercialisation of its own battery electric and fuel cell electric trucks, which includes rolling out its financing business model GATE, and Nikola will focus its operations in North America, with an integrated approach to its customers, offering BEV, FCEV and hydrogen infrastructure via its HYLA brand”, as stated in the official press release.
Iveco Group will assume full ownership of the joint venture in Ulm, Germany. Also, the Group will be licensed to freely access and continue developing vehicle control software for the jointly developed BEV and FCEV. Nikola will be granted the S-Way technology license for North America and related component supply from Iveco Group, and will gain joint ownership of the intellectual property of Generation 1 eAxles, technology developed together with Iveco Group’s powertrain brand, FPT Industrial.
The Group will cover the capital outlay related to this new phase of collaboration through its available liquidity, acquiring the above-named items partially in cash (USD 35 million) and partially in Nikola shares (20 million of shares). Despite the negative cash impact generated, Iveco Group forecasts to absorb it with cash flow generation and therefore this does not change its cash flow target for 2023; it will also retain a meaningful amount of Nikola shares.
