The Vietnamese car manufacturer Vinfast, which is hardly known in this country, is worth more after its US stock market debut than the significantly larger top dogs General Motors and Ford. The price increase to a good 37 dollars meant a market value of around 85 billion dollars. Ford is currently worth almost $48 billion, General Motors a good $46 billion.
However, only a relatively small number of Vinfast shares are traded, so there can be large price movements quickly. In after-hours trading, the share price then fell again by more than twelve percent. Vinfast – like many young car manufacturers before it – had chosen a detour to the stock exchange: instead of a classic IPO, in which a company is examined more closely, Vinfast merged with an already listed company shell, a so-called SPAC. The automaker is still owned by billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong.
Other new car companies had already achieved high stock market valuations that they could not necessarily maintain. Rivian, a maker of electric pickups, SUVs, and vans, was valued at $150 billion in November 2021. It is now just under $20 billion after bottlenecks in the supply chain.
