<story><title>Musk mulls taking Tesla private, Saudi sovereign fund builds $2B stake</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-07/tesla-jumps-on-report-of-saudis-building-about-2-billion-stake</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>radicalbyte</author><text>All of that is moot if it&amp;#x27;s the Saudi government buying in.&lt;p&gt;Tesla are by far the most advanced of all &amp;quot;green&amp;quot; car manufacturers; over the next 7-12 years there will be countries banning petrol&amp;#x2F;diesel cars.&lt;p&gt;If Tesla can scale their battery and car production by that time then you could be looking at a market share of Apple proportions.</text></item><item><author>chollida1</author><text>Honestly, I&amp;#x27;m starting to think this is less about avoiding the public markets and more about getting out of the crushing debt (8.65 in liabilities comming due before the end of March 2019)that they have coming due in March of 2019.&lt;p&gt;The billion of debt coming due is convertible above a price of $360 and if he can keep the price propped up will almost certainly force all bond holders to convert into equity holders.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;seekingalpha.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;4191711-tesla-stealth-capital-raise?ifp=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;seekingalpha.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;4191711-tesla-stealth-capit...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I mean, think about this rationally, if it wasn&amp;#x27;t for the public markets Tesla would already be bankrupt. Going private means giving up this access to capital as well as having to come up with 9 Billion to fund debt commind due.&lt;p&gt;With stock you have something to bargain with when selling debt.  Without it you&amp;#x27;ve lost a huge weapon.&lt;p&gt;Same for paying your employee&amp;#x27;s.  No more tesla stock that appreciates each quarter that you can sell as soon as it comes to you.&lt;p&gt;Also just did some digging on Tesla bonds and CDS...&lt;p&gt;At current levels, they imply a about a 30% chance of a Tesla default in the next five years. It costs around $1.3 million to insure $10 million of bonds against default.&lt;p&gt;And if Tesla went private and he funded it with debt he&amp;#x27;s looking at a rate somewhere around the low teens from what Bloomberg is reporting which means borrowing $58 Billion to finance this would cost aroudn $7.1 Billion a year in interest payments at 12.5%.&lt;p&gt;And keep in mind he&amp;#x27;s paying that to cut off public markets access for raising money, one of his best sources of cheap capital in the past 5 years.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>semi-extrinsic</author><text>&amp;gt; over the next 7-12 years there will be countries banning petrol&amp;#x2F;diesel cars&lt;p&gt;I do not think so. At most, in that timeframe we will see countries starting to ban sales of new cars which are not plug-in hybrids or better. And then remember the average lifespan of a car today is ~20 years, you will still see old pure petrol cars on the roads in 2050 is my bet. Just like you still see old cars on the road today without any catalytic converters.&lt;p&gt;If you look at the electric car market today, you have lots of small cars with reasonable-ish range, one sedan with good range and two pretend-SUVs (Model X and I-pace) with good range.&lt;p&gt;No manufacturer anywhere makes a pure electric estate car (station wagon); this is the most popular type of car in Europe. Nobody makes an electric pickup; this is the most popular type of car in the US. Nobody makes an actual SUV, Ford Expedition&amp;#x2F;Toyota LandCruiser&amp;#x2F;etc. style that can fit four mountain bikes in the trunk and tow a 9000 lbs trailer. Nobody makes an electric commercial vehicles of the type electricians, plumbers etc. drive.&lt;p&gt;What do all these have in common? Inherently terrible aerodynamics &amp;#x2F; poor mileage and a relatively frequent need to go long distance trips. If you take current battery tech and do some optimistic extrapolation of future developments, you still end up with battery packs costing $50k+ and weighing several thousand pounds. Which isn&amp;#x27;t going to work anywhere, nobody is going to buy an $80k+ electric pickup when a diesel F150 starts below $30k.&lt;p&gt;But I do think we will see reasonable plug-in hybrid versions of these car types. And Tesla will never be building cars with internal combustion engines, so they&amp;#x27;re effectively locked out of what I believe will be the biggest part of the market.</text></comment>
<story><title>Musk mulls taking Tesla private, Saudi sovereign fund builds $2B stake</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-07/tesla-jumps-on-report-of-saudis-building-about-2-billion-stake</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>radicalbyte</author><text>All of that is moot if it&amp;#x27;s the Saudi government buying in.&lt;p&gt;Tesla are by far the most advanced of all &amp;quot;green&amp;quot; car manufacturers; over the next 7-12 years there will be countries banning petrol&amp;#x2F;diesel cars.&lt;p&gt;If Tesla can scale their battery and car production by that time then you could be looking at a market share of Apple proportions.</text></item><item><author>chollida1</author><text>Honestly, I&amp;#x27;m starting to think this is less about avoiding the public markets and more about getting out of the crushing debt (8.65 in liabilities comming due before the end of March 2019)that they have coming due in March of 2019.&lt;p&gt;The billion of debt coming due is convertible above a price of $360 and if he can keep the price propped up will almost certainly force all bond holders to convert into equity holders.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;seekingalpha.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;4191711-tesla-stealth-capital-raise?ifp=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;seekingalpha.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;4191711-tesla-stealth-capit...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I mean, think about this rationally, if it wasn&amp;#x27;t for the public markets Tesla would already be bankrupt. Going private means giving up this access to capital as well as having to come up with 9 Billion to fund debt commind due.&lt;p&gt;With stock you have something to bargain with when selling debt.  Without it you&amp;#x27;ve lost a huge weapon.&lt;p&gt;Same for paying your employee&amp;#x27;s.  No more tesla stock that appreciates each quarter that you can sell as soon as it comes to you.&lt;p&gt;Also just did some digging on Tesla bonds and CDS...&lt;p&gt;At current levels, they imply a about a 30% chance of a Tesla default in the next five years. It costs around $1.3 million to insure $10 million of bonds against default.&lt;p&gt;And if Tesla went private and he funded it with debt he&amp;#x27;s looking at a rate somewhere around the low teens from what Bloomberg is reporting which means borrowing $58 Billion to finance this would cost aroudn $7.1 Billion a year in interest payments at 12.5%.&lt;p&gt;And keep in mind he&amp;#x27;s paying that to cut off public markets access for raising money, one of his best sources of cheap capital in the past 5 years.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>simias</author><text>&amp;gt;Tesla are by far the most advanced of all &amp;quot;green&amp;quot; car manufacturers&lt;p&gt;Are they? I don&amp;#x27;t follow these things closely and I didn&amp;#x27;t realize that it was the case, I always thought that Musk&amp;#x27;s great idea was not so much technical superiority but rather aiming for the super high end and market an electric &amp;quot;luxury&amp;quot; car niche. How far ahead are they compared to, say, Toyota who&amp;#x27;s been making hybrid vehicles for a while now?&lt;p&gt;I also think your timeframe might be slightly optimistic, I can&amp;#x27;t really imagine a large western country banning internal combustion cars within the next 12 years, much less developping countries. I hope you&amp;#x27;re right though, I want to live in a world where ICEs are in museums.</text></comment>