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Lordstown Motors Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2022 Financial Results
Mar 6, 2023
Link Webcast https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/itd4s25u
Link to Investor Presentation https://investor.lordstownmotors.com/static-files/fd709a23-d3fb-49d9-b17e-08045b994d53
Link to Press Release https://investor.lordstownmotors.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lordstown-motors-reports-fourth-quarter-and-fiscal-year-2022
Link to Full Report https://investor.lordstownmotors.com/node/9086/pdf

LORDSTOWN, Ohio, March 06, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lordstown Motors Corp. (Nasdaq: RIDE “Lordstown Motors” or “LMC”), an original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) of electric light duty vehicles focused on the commercial fleet market, today released its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 financial results and provided a business update.

Fourth Quarter and Recent Business Highlights

- Foxconn Investment of up to $170 million, subject to certain conditions; initial $52 million funded
- Progressed pre-development work on the new program in collaboration with Foxconn EV Ecosystem
- Start of commercial sales of the EnduranceTM, an electric full-size pickup truck
- Supplier quality and performance issues have limited production and sales; corrective actions underway
- Ending cash and short-term investments of $221.7 million, significantly in excess of previous outlook
- Reduced operating loss driven by spending discipline

Executive Commentary

In Q4 2022, we expanded and strengthened our partnership with Foxconn. We converted our prior $100 million joint venture into a direct investment in Lordstown Motors of up to $170 million, $52 million of which was funded in November 2022.

As previously announced, the initial Foxconn funding consisted of $22 million of Lordstown Motors Class A common stock to be used for general corporate purposes and $30 million of our Series A preferred stock limited to funding development and design activities for a new electric vehicle program in collaboration with Foxconn and its EV ecosystem as well as related overhead. The remaining investment of up to $117.3 million consists of $47.3 million in common stock and up to $70.0 in preferred stock. The common stock will be purchased following receipt of applicable regulatory approvals, including a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, and subject to other conditions. The preferred stock will be purchased by Foxconn based on achieving certain EV Program milestones to be agreed-upon by the parties and subject to other conditions. Upon completion of the investments, Foxconn is expected to hold all of LMC’s outstanding preferred stock and nearly 18% of our common stock on a pro-forma basis, and will have the right to designate two members to be added to LMC’s board of directors.

We continue to work collaboratively with Foxconn and the Mobility-in-Harmony (“MIH”) Consortium on the pre-development work and vehicle development process (“VDP”) deliverables for our next platform and vehicle program. The next platform and vehicle program are key to Lordstown Motors’ long-term business strategy and are becoming a greater portion of our Company’s focus.

The new vehicle will likely source key components and subsystems from Foxconn and MIH Consortium members and be built in the Foxconn EV Ohio assembly plant. “Our asset-light business model and collaboration with the Foxconn EV ecosystem, including MIH, will provide the opportunity for Lordstown Motors to create winning EVs that are tailored to the needs of customers that use them for various work applications, while gaining the cost benefits of scale,” said Edward Hightower, Lordstown Motors’ CEO & President.

Following full homologation and certification, we began commercial sales of our Endurance BEV pick-up truck in the 4th quarter of 2022. Shortly after our January production update, we began to discover and experience several new performance and quality issues with the vehicles coming off the production line and vehicles in process. Some of these issues were discovered by us or our suppliers, though some were experienced by our initial customers. As our customers are our highest priority, we decided to temporarily pause production as we worked with our supplier network to root cause the issues, conduct additional vehicle, component, and software testing, and as needed, make updates to affected vehicle components and software. In this regard, we filed paperwork with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”) to voluntarily recall the Endurance to address supplier quality issues. Performance issues are often discovered as an entirely new vehicle with several new technologies begins operating in new and different environments by customers. The Company is diligently working with suppliers on the root cause analysis of each issue and potential solutions, which in some cases may include part design modifications, retrofits and software updates. As a result, through February 2023, approximately 40 Endurance vehicles have been completed or are in process and we have sold a total of six vehicles, of our planned initial batch of up to 500 units. We now have line of sight to the resolution of the issues that resulted in the production pause and voluntary recalls, and in the upcoming weeks expect to announce when we will resume production and deliveries.

This week, we will be displaying the Endurance at NTEA Work Truck Week in Indianapolis. We will also display an Endurance with commercial fleet-focused accessories from leading manufacturers and suppliers of aftermarket equipment. To provide our customers with aftermarket service and warranty support, we have entered into an agreement with a third-party provider. We will work with the provider to jointly provide service and warranty work for the Endurance vehicles in key states, where allowed by law. We plan to share more on the strategic rollout with our service partner in the coming weeks.

We shared the story of Lordstown’s future and collaboration with Foxconn and MIH earlier this year at CES. We also plan to discuss our role in the growing Foxconn EV ecosystem later this month at the upcoming SXSW (South-by-Southwest) event in Austin, TX, during their mobility, electrification, and innovation track.

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Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2022 Results and First Quarter 2023 Outlook

We began to sell the Endurance late in the fourth quarter, recording sales of three vehicles and approximately $30 million in cost of sales. Included in cost of sales were $0.6 million of production costs, $8.3 million of depreciation on production equipment and tooling we own, and $21 million of charges related to inventory write-downs. Production costs consisted of direct materials on the vehicles sold as well as manufacturing, warranty accrual, delivery and launch related costs. The $21 million in inventory charges primarily related to our adjustment for inventory acquired during the period to net realizable value (“NRV”) and another charge we took for excess inventory on hand.

Operating loss of $104.9 million included $46.8 million in non-cash charges related to asset impairments and write-downs, accelerated stock compensation (see attached schedules), the $21 million in inventory charges referred to above, the initiation of depreciation on our assets and tooling after being placed in service, totaling $8.5 million, along with a $1.2 million litigation accrual.

Selling, general and administrative (“SG&A”) expenses were $22.2 million for the quarter, including $7.6 million in non-cash items for the write-off of a prepaid royalty and accelerated stock compensation and $1.2 million of litigation accruals. The remaining $13.3 million includes $8.3 million in personnel and professional fees, $3.2 million in legal fees and insurance premiums, and $1.9 million in other services and marketing expenditures. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, personnel and professional fees were down 39%, primarily due to a significant reduction in consulting support that has been declining since the start of 2022. Outside legal costs also continue to decrease compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, down $3.8 million. In late 2022 we renewed key insurance policies at significantly lower rates, which led to a 23% reduction in premiums. Other costs, primarily marketing spend, were 11% higher compared to the prior year as selling activity increases.

Research and development (“R&D”) expenses were $15.6 million in the quarter, including $1.8 million in accelerated stock compensation, $10.6 million in personnel and consulting costs, and $3.2 million in software, other services and overhead. In the fourth quarter of 2021, non-plant related personnel and consulting costs were $16.9 million, representing a 38% decrease, as Endurance development and testing expenditures declined going into the launch of commercial production and sales. Freight costs were down $1.4 million versus the same period in 2021.

For fiscal year 2022, SG&A expenses were $138.3 million, including $33.9 million in litigation accruals, $25.6 million in NRV charges for the first nine months of 2022 before reporting cost of sales and $7.6 million for the write-off of a prepaid royalty and accelerated stock compensation. The remaining SG&A includes $40.5 million for personnel and professional fees, $11.4 million of legal expenses, $11.8 million of insurance premiums and $7.2 million for other services and marketing expenditures. Compared to 2021, outside legal fees decreased $23.9, while professional fees and consulting expenses were lower by $9.2 million, net of an increase in personnel costs. Partially offsetting these items were higher expenditures for services and marketing as we prepared to launch the Endurance, along with higher insurance premiums representing nearly a full year’s impact of higher premiums incurred with renewals in late 2021.

For the fiscal year 2022, R&D expenses were $107.8 million, including $1.8 million in accelerated stock compensation and an $18.4 million reimbursement of operating expenses by Foxconn related to the sale of the Lordstown, Ohio plant. Costs associated with operating the plant of $33.3 million net of the reimbursement, were incurred almost entirely prior to its sale in May 2022, compared to $57.1 million for all of 2021. The remaining R&D expenses in 2022 consist of $55.2 million of personnel and consulting, $22.8 million of prototype components and $9.8 million of software and other operational activities. Non-plant related costs were down compared to 2021 as development, testing and other R&D work related to the Endurance decreased as we approached commercial production and sales. Relative to 2021, costs associated with personnel and consulting were lower by approximately 47%, prototype components were down 78% and freight declined 86%.

Other operating items for the year totaled $111.4 million, representing impairment charges on our long-lived assets, of which $75 million of the charge was in the third quarter of 2022. The incremental impairment in the fourth quarter of 2022 was primarily driven by a decrease in the Company’s stock price, which is a key metric used in the analysis. An additional charge was taken to write down the value of certain prepayments for inventory that are for quantities we do not anticipate being consumed by the initial production batch of the Endurance, including assets related to the rights to access General Motors parts.

At the end of 2022, cash and short-term investments were $221.7 million, approximately $18 million higher than the third quarter of 2022. The change in cash includes $42.7 million in cash used for operations, inclusive of a $21.1 million working capital investment, $2.9 million in capital expenditures, net of $1.1 million in asset sale proceeds, and $63.7 million in cash proceeds from the issuance of common and preferred stock, including $52 million purchased by Foxconn. Cash and short-term investments at the end of 2022 was almost $57 million, or 34%, above the high end of our previous outlook primarily due to $13 million in cost containment, $12.4 million in stock sales under the ATM, $12 million related to the timing of capital expenditures that will push into 2023, and $13 million in working capital, excluding inventory. The purchase of less inventory than planned, together with lower sales volume, provided approximately $3 million of the benefit.

We expect to end the first quarter of 2023 with $150 to $170 million in cash and short-term investments, excluding any additional Foxconn funding, other equity sales or contingent liabilities. Relative to the fourth quarter of 2022, in the aggregate, we anticipate first quarter of 2023 SG&A and R&D to decline slightly, without the accelerated stock compensation, litigation accruals and asset write-downs, as R&D modestly increases with development activity, offsetting the larger decrease in SG&A.

Please refer to “Forward Looking Statements” below.

Conference call Information

Lordstown Motors will host a conference call at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time today, March 6, 2023. The call can be accessed via a live webcast that is accessible on the Events page of Lordstown Motors’ Investor Relations website, as well as the investor presentation deck, at https://investor.lordstownmotors.com/. An archive of the webcast will be available shortly after the call.

About Lordstown Motors Corp.

Lordstown Motors is an electric vehicle (EV) OEM developing innovative light duty commercial fleet vehicles, with the Endurance all electric pickup truck as its first vehicle and being launched in the Foxconn EV plant in Lordstown, Ohio. Lordstown Motors has corporate, engineering, research and development facilities in Farmington Hills, Michigan and Irvine, California. For additional information visit www.lordstownmotors.com.