General Motors has just announced the acquisition for $2.1 billion of SoftBank’s stake in its autonomous driving company, Cruise. Now, the manufacturer from Detroit owns 80% of the shares of the firm he bought in 2016.
SoftBank in trouble
In addition to the acquisition, General Motors announced an additional $1.35 billion investment in Cruise, to replace financing pledged by SoftBank in February when the company rolled out a safety driverless robotaxis service in San Francisco. , in California.
No need for manual controls in self-driving vehicles in the United States
On the side of SoftBank, this sale reveals the great financial difficulties encountered by the Japanese giant. Hit hard by the fall in the values of public shares and private companies in terminal phase, the group wishes to sell a significant part of its assets in order to get back on its feet, the failure of the takeover of ARM by Nvidia having also impacted very negatively.
From now on, SoftBank wants to focus on profitable solutions in the short term.
Cruise will not be IPO at this time
” We are extremely pleased to report that GM is leveraging the strength of its balance sheet to seize the opportunity to increase its equity stake in Cruise and advance our integrated autonomous vehicle strategy. We continue to believe that our investment represents an extraordinary opportunity to create long-term shareholder value. Our increased investment position not only simplifies Cruise’s shareholding structure, but also provides GM and Cruise with maximum flexibility to pursue the most value-creating path to market and unlock the full potential of driving technology. autonomous said Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, in A press release.
As explained Bloomberg, the deal consolidates General Motors’ ownership and control of Cruise and more importantly, it reverses a capital diversification game started by former chief executive Dan Ammann, who was fired in December after pushing for an IPO. Mary Barra and Kyle Vogt, the founder of Cruise who replaced Ammann as the self-driving unit’s CEO, said an IPO isn’t on the cards at this time and likely won’t be anytime soon. so early.
Vogt prefers to focus on the business of his company rather than going public at the moment, a move he calls ” distraction “.
Cruise is focused on her business
“ The continued partnership between Cruise and GM, along with GM’s financial strength and scale of production, are important drivers and key differentiators for Cruise as we accelerate our progress and enter the next phase of commercialization. “, did he declare.
Cruise has just become the very first company to offer self-driving taxi service without any safety drivers in the United States. In addition to General Motors, the company has also established partnerships with Hyundai, Microsoft and Walmart.