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Archer revises value of its business merger with Atlas Crest and appoints former United Airlines CEO to its board

Archer has revised the val­u­a­tion of its pre­vi­ous­ly announced busi­ness merg­er with Atlas Crest Invest­ment Corp by 38 per cent — knock­ing $1 bil­lion off its pro for­ma enter­prise val­ue, which now stands at $1.7 bil­lion.

In a press release, it was announced this deci­sion was made in recog­ni­tion of Archer’s com­mit­ment to dri­ving long-term val­ue cre­ation for all share­hold­ers.

The com­bined com­pa­ny is still expect­ed to receive approx­i­mate­ly $1.1 bil­lion of gross pro­ceeds from a ful­ly com­mit­ted com­mon stock PIPE offer­ing of $600 mil­lion, along with approx­i­mate­ly $500 mil­lion cash held in trust, assum­ing no redemp­tions of Atlas Crest’s exist­ing pub­lic stock­hold­ers.

It is antic­i­pat­ed that the post-clos­ing com­pa­ny, Archer, will be list­ed on the NYSE with tick­er sym­bol ‘ACHR’.

Brett Adcock, Archer co-founder and co-CEO., said: “We are focused on build­ing not just an elec­tric air­craft, but a sus­tain­able, endur­ing eVTOL ecosys­tem, and hav­ing tremen­dous investor sup­port and momen­tum is crit­i­cal to our near- and long-term suc­cess.

“Today’s announce­ment reflects our com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy and share­hold­er align­ment now and into the future. We are mak­ing this bold move to ensure our eVTOL mar­ket lead­er­ship.”

Archer co-founder and co-CEO Adam Gold­stein, added: “Archer’s com­mer­cial part­ner­ships and unpar­al­leled tal­ent set us apart from any oth­er com­pa­ny in the eVTOL space, with an air­craft that has a stream­lined path to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion paving the way for us to be first to mar­ket.

“We believe these qual­i­ties and our mean­ing­ful recent busi­ness progress, com­bined with an adjust­ed val­u­a­tion, sup­port a high­ly com­pelling invest­ment the­sis on an absolute and rel­a­tive basis.”

The PIPE includ­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion from lead­ing strate­gic and long-term finan­cial investors includ­ing Unit­ed Air­lines, Stel­lan­tis and the ven­ture arm of Exor, Baron Cap­i­tal Group, the Fed­er­at­ed Her­mes Kauf­mann Funds, Mubadala Cap­i­tal, Put­nam Invest­ments and Access Indus­tries.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Ken Moelis and affil­i­ates, along with ear­ly investor Marc Lore and founders Adcock and Gold­stein, are invest­ing $30 mil­lion in the PIPE. Net cash from the trans­ac­tion will be used to fund Archer’s devel­op­ment to com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion and is expect­ed to exceed the fund­ing required to achieve cash flow pos­i­tive. Archer’s exist­ing share­hold­ers will roll 100 per cent of their shares into the com­bined com­pa­ny.

Michael Spel­la­cy, CEO of Atlas Crest, said: “Atlas Crest believes this is a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to reset the val­u­a­tion for the busi­ness, reflect­ing our com­mit­ment to ensur­ing long-term align­ment between the com­pa­ny and its share­hold­ers. We believe that Archer is the lead­ing eVTOL in the space with con­sid­er­able com­pet­i­tive advan­tages and enor­mous upside oppor­tu­ni­ty at this unpar­al­leled entry point.”

As well as its revised val­u­a­tion, Archer has also con­firmed the appoint­ment of Oscar Munoz, the for­mer Unit­ed Air­lines Chair­man and CEO, to the company’s board.

Munoz is a sea­soned avi­a­tion exec­u­tive and was CEO of Unit­ed Air­lines from 2015 to 2020. Pri­or to this, he served on the board of Unit­ed Air­lines’ par­ent com­pa­ny Unit­ed Con­ti­nen­tal Hold­ings.

Com­ment­ing on his new role, Munoz said: “After a career focused on advanc­ing the avi­a­tion indus­try, I am thrilled to be join­ing Archer’s board to con­tribute to the next true age of aer­i­al mobil­i­ty. Every new inven­tion of trans­port inau­gu­rates a rev­o­lu­tion in how we live and thrive as a plan­et, from the birth of the auto­mo­bile knit­ting our nation togeth­er, to the jet age keep­ing our world con­nect­ed.

“In pio­neer­ing eVTOL air­craft, Archer is lift­ing us into the next age of true aer­i­al mobil­i­ty, chang­ing the land­scape of cities for­ev­er. Above all, as we take to the skies as a mat­ter of rou­tine, it will ele­vate our col­lec­tive con­scious­ness to the imper­a­tive of sus­tain­abil­i­ty, which Archer’s tech­nol­o­gy will pow­er­ful­ly sup­port.

“I am deeply proud to join the board of a com­pa­ny that is advanc­ing the fron­tiers of avi­a­tion and expand­ing the hori­zons of how we live togeth­er.”

This year has been one of sus­tained momen­tum for Archer. In Feb­ru­ary, the com­pa­ny announced a strate­gic part­ner­ship with Stel­lan­tis to enable Archer to ben­e­fit from access to FCA’s low-cost sup­ply chain, advanced com­pos­ite mate­r­i­al capa­bil­i­ties, and engi­neer­ing and design expe­ri­ence.

It also announced a defin­i­tive agree­ment with Unit­ed Air­lines, the first of its kind for an eVTOL com­pa­ny, for $1 bil­lion of Archer’s air­craft, with an option for an addi­tion­al $500 mil­lion of air­craft. Archer also announced two city part­ner­ships in Los Ange­les and Mia­mi, both of which will help those cities work to address some of the most press­ing mobil­i­ty and envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges.

Last month, Archer unveiled its inau­gur­al demon­stra­tor air­craft, Mak­er, live in Los Ange­les and world­wide to livestream audi­ences, amass­ing more than 38 mil­lion views to date.

The com­pa­ny also con­tin­ues to bol­ster its high­ly expe­ri­enced team with over 100 new hires in four months and notable new senior lead­er­ship appoint­ments across Flight Safe­ty, Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, Engi­neer­ing, Pro­gram Man­age­ment and Man­u­fac­tur­ing.

The com­pa­ny recent­ly announced Jeff Green­wood as Chief Flight Test Pilot and Head of Flight Safe­ty, Dave Den­ni­son as Vice Pres­i­dent of Engi­neer­ing, Bob Ellithor­pe as Vice Pres­i­dent of Pro­gram Man­age­ment and Glen Burks as Vice Pres­i­dent of Man­u­fac­tur­ing.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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