Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s stake in Lucid has swung from a paper gain of nearly $59 million to a loss of about $25.6 million in ten weeks, as the EV maker’s shares slid to a record-low close on Friday at $3.79.
The 19,513,000 shares the Saudi investor disclosed in July were worth about $74.0 million at Friday’s close of $3.79.
The private office of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has said he paid about $99.6 million for them, an average of $5.11 per share. That leaves a paper loss of about $25.6 million, or 26%, assuming he still holds the full position.
Lucid shares have closed below his average purchase price in every session since August 26, a run of 32 trading days, official Nasdaq data show.
From Gain to Loss
Alwaleed disclosed the 5% stake in a Schedule 13G filed on July 28, giving July 23 as the date of the event that triggered the filing.
At Lucid’s close of $6.45 on July 23, the shares were worth about $125.9 million. The disclosure sent Lucid up 21.5% to $7.90 on July 28, lifting the holding’s value to about $154.2 million.
Lucid told Bloomberg at the time that it does not comment on individual investments but welcomed the stake as an independent vote of confidence.
The position peaked two sessions later, when Lucid closed at $8.12 on July 30, valuing it at about $158.4 million and putting the paper gain at about $58.8 million, or 59%.
Lucid’s stock price has more than halved since then, dropping 53.3% and erasing about $84.5 million of the stake’s value.
The company’s shares first closed below $5.11 on August 24, recovered above it the following day and have stayed below it since.
What His Office Said
Alwaleed’s private office told Asharq Business with Bloomberg in July that he had invested about $99.6 million at an average cost of $5.11 a share, and that the position was built over the preceding weeks.
“My Private Office filed the required SEC disclosure regarding my 5% stake in @LucidMotors, acquired at a market cap of less than $2B,” the prince wrote on X on July 28, in a post published in Arabic and English.
A market value below $2 billion, based on the 390,256,808 shares outstanding cited in his filing, implied a price below about $5.12 a share, consistent with the average his office gave.
A Schedule 13G reports a position and a date but not a purchase price, leaving his office’s figure as the only public indication of what he paid.
Below the Reporting Threshold
Alwaleed filed an amended 13G on August 13 showing the same 19,513,000 shares, now equal to 4.95% of Lucid.
“This percent has decreased below 5% due to an increase in outstanding shares of Class A Common Stock,” the filing said, after Lucid’s share count rose to 394,070,176 at the end of July.
The amendment reports ownership of 5% or less, which ends his obligation to disclose further changes in the position.
As a result, whether he still holds all of the shares is not public, and the figures in this article assume he does.
Both filings certify that the shares were not acquired or held to change or influence control of Lucid.
He holds the stake personally, with sole voting and dispositive power, rather than through Kingdom Holding Company, the Riyadh-listed investment firm he founded and chairs.
Kingdom Holding’s investments include Banque Saudi Fransi and the Four Seasons hotel group.
His most recent ownership filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) before Lucid, in 2022,concerned his stake in Twitter, which he and Kingdom Holding rolled into Elon Musk’s takeover of the company that year, the SEC’s records show.
Two Saudi Shareholders
Lucid’s majority owner is Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns about 45% of Lucid’s common stock outright and about 57% when its convertible preferred stock is counted as converted, by EV‘s calculation from company filings.
PIF is also a shareholder in Kingdom Holding, having bought 16.87% of the company from Alwaleed in 2022 for about $1.5 billion.
The 13G filings record no group membership with any other shareholder, and nothing in them indicates coordination with PIF.
The prince’s position has fared better than those of Lucid’s two strategic investors because he bought after the stock had already fallen.
Uber’s 37,753,583 shares, bought for $500 million in two tranches, are worth about $143 million, a paper loss of 71%, while PIF’s common shares are about 90% below what it paid for them.
A Lower Valuation
Lucid’s market value stood at about $1.49 billion at Friday’s close, below the less-than-$2 billion valuation at which Alwaleed said he built the stake.
Since his disclosure, Lucid has drawn a further $800 million from its PIF-backed credit line, in two $400 million draws on August 24 and October 6, leaving about $400 million of the facility untapped, according to a regulatory filing.
The company delivered 3,806 vehicles in the third quarter, down 6.7% from a year earlier, and built 2,954 as it cut inventory.
Chief Executive Officer Silvio Napoli has said in early August Lucid will need more capital “at some point”.
Lucid reports third-quarter results on November 9.
