Ford cuts Rivian stake by about 1%, predicting a difficult year ahead

A week after the Detroit automaker revealed a decline in profit and forecasted a challenging year, Ford reduced its share in struggling EV manufacturer Rivian to 1.15% on February 10.

Due to manufacturing issues at the Irvine, California-based company, Ford, which wrote down the value of its Rivian investment by $7.4 billion in 2022, has been reducing its ownership. By the end of 2021, Ford had an 11.4% stake in Rivian.

The new stake was revealed in a filing on Feb. 8, a week after Rivian announced its plan to reduce costs by 6% of its workforce in the wake of declining cash reserves brought on by growing economic concerns.

Rivian stock had a similarly dismal 2022, losing almost 82% of its value.

Due to supply-chain issues, the company, which has been losing money on every vehicle it produces, just missed its 25,000 unit production goal for the entire year in 2016.

On the other hand, the partnership between Ford and  Rivian began in 2019 after Ford invested $500 million into Rivian, which made a huge milestone in the company’s shared vision of accelerating sustainable mobility. 

Along with the investment, Ford also announced that it would leverage Rivian’s electric architecture to create its own Ford- or Lincoln-branded EV in addition to its F-150 Lightning electric pickup and Mustang-inspired crossover vehicles (the Mustang Mach-E).

Initial plans called for Ford to take over a portion of Rivian’s Illinois factory’s manufacturing capacity, however, Ford said in April 2020 that it would be moving away from Rivian’s platform. 

Additionally, Ford disclosed a $5.4 billion write-down on its investment in April 2022 after Rivian’s stock fell more than 70% from its highs.

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