Tuesday Ticker: January 12, 2021

Toronto, Ontario ⁠— In this week’s Tuesday Ticker, Driven Brands announces its plans for its proposed initial public offering, speculations on who will build Apple’s rumoured self-drivng vehicle and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is named the world’s richest person.

Driven to market

Last week, Driven Brands⁠—owner of collision repair brands CARSTAR, Maaco, Fix Auto USA and others⁠—announced that it had launched the roadshow for its proposed initial public offering with 38,000,000 shares of its common stock.

The initial public offering price is expected to be between $17 and $20 per share. Driven Brands intends to list its common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol ‘DRVN’.

The company intends to use the proceeds from the offering and cash on hand to repay in full the oustanding indebtedness under certain credit facilities and to pay fees and expenses in connection with the offering.

Supplier speculation

As talks around Apple’s rumoured self-driving vehicle increase, analysts are increasing speculations that the tech giant will outsource, as it does with the iPhone. One global market analyst is convinced at least one Canadian manufacturer has what it takes to build the rumoured vehicle.

“If Apple is serious about building a car … Magna Steyr should build it,” Evercore ISI analyst Chris McNally stated in a Canadian Press report last week.

During a Jan. 5 NBC report, Magna CEO Swamy Kotagiri said Magna would certainly be capable of building Apple’s concept car.

“I can’t really comment on speculation or rumors but if the question was: is Magna capable of building a car, and does Magna have the desire to do it? The answer to those two questions would definitely be yes,” said Kotagiri.

Regardless of Apple’s outsourcing decision, Magna has been hard at work advising tech groups and start-ups looking to enter the automotive business. As a result, Magna’s shares have nearly trebled since March, giving the company a $21 billion market value.

Headquartered in Aurora, Ontario, Magna is the world’s third-largest auto supplier, having generated nearly $40 billion of revenue in 2019 from products such as transmissions, vehicle cameras, mirrors and seating. Its contract manufacturing subsidiary, Magna Steyr, builds premium vehicles at a factory in Graz, Austria, including the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, the electric Jaguar I-Pace, the BMW Z4 sports car and its platform sibling, the Toyota Supra.

Charged up

Elon Musk has taken over the title of world’s richest person as his net worth crossed more than US$185 billion (CAD$237 billion) last week.

The Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur took the top slot after Tesla’s share price increased last Thursday. He takes the top spot from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had held it since 2017.

Tesla has surged in value this year, and hit a market value of US$700bn (CAD$896.8 billion) for the first time on Wednesday.

“How strange. Well, back to work,” Musk replied to a Tweet sharing the news.

Tesla’s fortunes are expected to continue in the coming years, especially with the U.S. Democrats sealing their control of the US Senate in the forthcoming session.

“A Blue Senate is very bullish and a potential ‘game changer’ for Tesla and the overall electric vehicle sector, with a more green-driven agenda now certainly in the cards for the next few years,” said Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities.