Luminar Shares Rise After News of Capital Raise, Share Buyback Intentions

$Luminar Technologies (LAZR.US)$ announced the upsizing and completion of their convertible notes offering, which they plan to use for an increased share buyback program.

The company, which is developing lidar-based self driving software and sensors, announced the deal for 1.25% convertible notes was fully subscribed including an upsizing for $625M in gross proceeds. Luminar had previously estimated that this would lead to $608M in net proceeds. The company "expects to use over $300 million of the proceeds for $Luminar Technologies (LAZR.US)$ share purchases," having previously announced plans to buy "$250M or more" of shares.

“We have more conviction than ever in our market leadership and business trajectory, and are opportunistically capitalizing on what we believe to be a substantially undervalued and volatile share price,” said Tom Fennimore, Chief Financial Officer of Luminar in the press release.

Beyond the share repurchase plan, the company plans to use the net proceeds to invest in series production capacity expansion, new commercial wins, technology roadmap advancement, international expansion, and accelerating software development, and said it remains on track to enter the series production phase by the end of 2022.

Luminar shares are up 2.8% today amidst a buoyant day for electric vehicle related companies, with $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ up 4.9%, $Nikola (NKLA.US)$ up 16%, and Nio $NIO Inc (NIO.US)$ up 2.1%. The share buyback news comes just over a year after Luminar came public via a SPAC merger, and with shares down nearly 50% for the year. The company has grown revenues this year but has yet to turn a gross profit and has seen widening operating and net losses, a reminder of its early stage nature.