Hyliion Inc.'s merger with a special purpose acquisition company officially closed the afternoon of Oct. 1, clearing the way for the shares of the Cedar Park-headquartered trucking technology company to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 2.
Founder and CEO Thomas Healy is expected to be at the NYSE on Oct. 5 to ring the opening bell.
Shareholders of Tortoise Acquisition Corp. approved of the merger with Hyliion (NYSE: HLYN) — which makes power trains for tractor-trailers that cut down on fuel consumption — on Sept. 28. Tortoise is a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, affiliated with Leawood, Kansas-based Tortoise Capital Advisors LLC. SPACs are blank-check companies that don't engage in any commercial activity. Instead, they raise capital to finance the acquisition of other businesses. SPACs are enjoying a heyday on Wall Street, especially among electric vehicle companies.
The deal is expected to generate about $560 million in proceeds for Hyliion, according to an Oct. 1 announcement.
Healy started Hyliion in 2015, when he was still a student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The business relocated to Cedar Park in 2018.
Hyliion is still relatively small. It employs about 70 people and expects about $1 million in revenue in 2020. However, the company said revenue could grow to $344 million in 2022, more than $1 billion in 2023 and nearly $2.1 billion in 2024 as it begins to commercialize its fully electric power train. For more on the company's financials, go here.
Hyliion's SPAC deal, announced in June, gave it a valuation of about $1.1 billion. However, it could very quickly jump much higher based on investor demand — Barron's reported Sept. 28 the pro forma valuation could be as high as $7.8 billion after the merger.
"This transaction is a crucial milestone in our business plan as we gear up for full commercialization and the mass production of our solutions, enabling Hyliion to maintain its technology leadership and first-mover advantage," Healy said in a statement.
Marathon Capital was adviser to Hyliion on the deal and Cooley LLP and Wick Phillips LLP were its legal advisers. Barclays Capital Inc. was adviser for Tortoise and Vinson & Elkins LLP was legal adviser. Barclays and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC served as joint-placement agents for Tortoise.
