Lilium closes business combination with Qell and begins trading on Nasdaq under the symbol LILM

Lil­i­um has com­plet­ed its busi­ness com­bi­na­tion with Qell Acqui­si­tion Corp, with ordi­nary shares and redeemable war­rants now trad­ing on Nas­daq under the sym­bols ‘LILM’ and LILMW’ respec­tive­ly.

The trans­ac­tion was approved by Qell’s share­hold­ers on Sep­tem­ber 10th dur­ing a Spe­cial Meet­ing in which more than 98 per cent of the votes cast were in favour of the busi­ness com­bi­na­tion. Trad­ing of shares began on Wednes­day.

As a result, Lil­i­um will receive approx­i­mate­ly $584 mil­lion of gross pro­ceeds, pri­or to trans­ac­tion expens­es, includ­ing from funds man­aged by long-term finan­cial investors, which include Atom­i­co, Bail­lie Gif­ford, LGT and its affil­i­ate impact invest­ing plat­form Lightrock, funds and accounts man­aged by Black­Rock, Ten­cent, Fer­rovial, Palan­tir, Hon­ey­well, FII Insti­tute and pri­vate funds affil­i­at­ed with PIMCO.

Net cash from the trans­ac­tion will be used to fund the com­mer­cial launch of Lil­i­um’s sev­en-seater Jet. Lil­i­um’s exist­ing share­hold­ers will roll 100 per cent of their shares into the com­bined com­pa­ny.  

Daniel Wie­gand, Co-Founder and CEO of Lil­i­um said: “In 2015 with the clear vision that the decar­bon­i­sa­tion of avi­a­tion is inevitable, we set out to build a team and prod­uct that would rad­i­cal­ly trans­form the way the world moves.

“Six years and five gen­er­a­tions of tech­nol­o­gy demon­stra­tor air­craft lat­er, we’re clos­er than ever to this goal. This mile­stone will bring us even clos­er to launch­ing our ser­vice in 2024 and mak­ing sus­tain­able, high-speed region­al air trav­el a real­i­ty to com­mu­ni­ties around the world.”

At clos­ing, Tom Enders will become Chair­man of the Board and be joined on the Board of Direc­tors by Wie­gand, Bar­ry Engle, CEO and Co-Founder of Qell, Gabrielle Toledano, Hen­ri Cour­pron, David Waller­stein, Niklas Zennström, David Neele­man and Mar­garet M. Smyth. 

Engle said: “We see Lil­i­um as a once-in-a-life­time oppor­tu­ni­ty that will be at the fore­front of a whole new indus­try. Lil­i­um has the capac­i­ty to rev­o­lu­tionise region­al trav­el, sav­ing peo­ple hours so they can quick­ly trav­el from city to city. Using its sev­en-seater Lil­i­um Jet, Lilium’s region­al shut­tle ser­vice should enable sus­tain­able, high-speed trans­porta­tion. Qell is proud to bring this excit­ing com­pa­ny to the pub­lic mar­kets.”

Tom Enders, Chair­man of the Board, added: “Share­hold­ers, man­age­ment and more than 700 employ­ees are unit­ed in their quest for sus­tain­able avi­a­tion for every­body. It will not be an easy jour­ney but we have the tech­nol­o­gy, the team and the resources to be very con­fi­dent that Lil­i­um will make it hap­pen.

“Our role as a Board of Direc­tors is to make strate­gic deci­sions, to super­vise, to coach and to advise. I am proud to be lead­ing one of the most diverse and com­pe­tent Boards in our indus­try.“