Fisker Denied Short Report Claims of Magna Bank Guarantee

Last week Thursday, Fisker (NYSE: FSR) shares fell more than 5% after the short-selling firm Fuzzy Panda took aim at the company, its founders, and their contract manufacturer, Magna, in a short report.

Fisker did manage to climb over 4% the following day on Friday, closing the week at $7.63 per share, but it is a far cry from its 2021 high of over $31. In 2022, the stock has declined by over 53%. In addition, it is down more than 2% premarket Monday.

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Fuzzy Panda said in its report that electric vehicle firm Fisker has a “history of lies” and that founder Henrik Fisker reminds them of “Trevor Milton from Nikola and SBF from FTX.”

In the report, the research firm states that when they spoke to old employees of Fisker, Magna, and “Old Fisker,” they told them that Fisker’s cash is tied up and the company faces liquidity issues. 

“We discovered Fisker has large undisclosed bank guarantees that sets a minimum cash balance,” Fuzzy Panda wrote. “The bank guarantees are to Magna and estimated at ~$790-825 million.”

They added that this is “Fisker’s entire current cash balance!”

Furthermore, they believe the guarantees are preventing Fisker from funding operating losses with the cash on their balance sheet and are instead forcing them to use their ATM facility to raise funds to pay expenses.

The research firm’s other claims include that the company has been cutting costs internally, that it has attempted to hide that the EV platform they license was built for a Chinese EV, that former employees described Henrik Fisker as a pathological liar, and that there are major software issues. 

Fisker did, however, respond to the claims, stating that there is no bank guarantee with Magna, and that it has issued a cease and desist letter to Fuzzy Panda. Fisker described the allegations as “false and misleading.”

“Fisker Inc. does not have a bank guarantee with Magna, and Fisker owns the intellectual property for the Fisker Ocean Platform,” the company said in its statement. “The Ocean does not have 80 percent carryover parts from any other platform.”