Denis Sverdlov at Arrival HQ in London
Arrival
An electric vehicle startup that’s yet to put a car on the road has made its founder and chief executive, Denis Sverdlov, a billionaire after trading opened Thursday morning on the Nasdaq exchange in New York.
London-based Arrival, which makes super-lightweight electric trucks and buses, went public at $22.40 per share. The price sunk to $18.30, before closing its first day of trading at $22.80, making Sverdlov—who owns more than 76% of the stock—worth $10.6 billion at the end of Thursday.
Arrival went public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called CIIC Merger Corp, making Sverdlov the latest in a long line of new SPAC billionaires that includes Chamath Palihapitiya ($1.2 billion), Geeta Gupta-Fisker and Henrik Fisker ($1.6 billion each) and Mat Ishbia ($9.7 billion). CIIG Chairman and ex-Marvel CEO Peter Cuneo said by video on Twitter that, in merging with…