BNP Paribas filed its portfolio update with the SEC, disclosing that its stake in Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio increased ninefold in the third quarter.
The stake not only represents BNP’s peak holdings in the EV maker, but it was also the third largest among Nio‘s institutional investors.
The European bank held 18.6 million shares in the company by the end of September, a position that was worth $141 million.
Since the start of 2025, Nio‘s stock has risen 43%.
The company’s US-listed shares reached a 13-month high of $8.02 in early October after the company reported its second consecutive month of record deliveries.
However, the share price has dropped by 18% quarter to date and closed at $6.24 on Thursday.
As a result, BNP’s position is currently worth $116 million.
Stake in Nio
BNP Paribas opened a position in Nio for the first time in the first quarter of 2019, a few months after the company’s initial public offering.
By then, it held 1 million shares, worth $5 million.
In the following quarter, the holdings jumped 200% to nearly 4 million shares.
Over the next two years, they peaked at 4.6 million shares in the second quarter of 2022, before BNP dumped all its holdings in the July-September period.
The bank reopened a position in Nio by the end of 2022, with 4.3 million shares — worth $42 million at the time.
Since then, the stake fluctuated at around 5 million shares up until the end of 2024, when it was cut in half.
While BNP Paribas’ position in Nio has sharply increased in the previous quarter, its stake in XPeng followed the opposite path.
The bank has slashed its holdings in the Chinese EV maker by nearly 70%, from 3 million to 957,000 shares.
Nasdaq data shows that the company had a stake in 4,674 companies by the end of the third quarter, worth $125 billion.
Institutional Ownership
A total of 460 institutional investors collectively hold around 183 million shares in the EV maker, as of Friday.
UBS remains Nio‘s largest investor, despite having slashed its position by nearly 59% in the third quarter.
The firm held 28.7 million shares in the automaker by the end of September, a stake currently worth $179 million.
London-based RWC Asset Management acquired 10.46 million Nio shares in the previous quarter, marking its return to the stock nearly five years after exiting its position.
Similarly, WT Asset Management has purchased over $18.6 million shares between July and September, after having exited its position in the automaker in late 2021.
WT and RWD currently place second and fourth among other institutional shareholders of the EV maker.
JPMorgan Chase, which used to be one of Nio‘s top 10 largest investors, has reduced its stake in the electric vehicle maker by 30% during the third quarter, selling over 1.49 million shares.
