Fisker Responds to Short Seller Attack

Fisker stock attacked by short seller who published a purported assessment containing numerous false and misleading allegations about the company.

Henrik Fisker at NYSE — Henrik Fisker and the team ringing the NYSE bell.

Today, Fisker was attacked by a short seller who published a “research report” with intention to cause harm to the company, stakeholders, and shareholders. The so called research report by Fuzzy Panda Research, which also announced a short position in Fisker stock, claims Fisker has a bank guarantee with manufacturing partner Magna, Fisker Ocean uses 80% carryover parts from a Chinese automaker, and then dredges up Henrik Fisker’s past business failure.

As a result of this short seller’s report, Fisker shares were off by more than 10% after Bloomberg and other media outlets picked up the story. However, shares began to rebound when Fisker caught wind of what we believe is a smear campaign. Fisker responded to Bloomberg stating, there are “numerous false allegations in the report.” The company went on to say they would “provide a detailed statement later today addressing each of them.” Shares rebounded some, but closed down 5.43% to $7.32/share.

After the stock market closed, Fisker issued a press release stating, “Fisker Inc. does not have a bank guarantee with Magna, and Fisker owns the intellectual property for the Fisker Ocean platform. The Ocean platform does not have 80 percent carryover parts from any other platform.” Furthermore, Fisker issued a cease-and-desist letter to the short seller firm and “intends to take immediate and aggressive action to address the false and misleading claims” made by the short seller.

Time to publicly go after short sellers

Fisker NYSE FSR Fisker Fam — Fisker listed on the NYSE.

Fisker shares have been under pressure by short sellers for as long as we can remember. Short sellers aim to sell stock in a public company with the intention to buy it back at a lower price. In the case of Fisker, 29.92% of the outstanding float is currently short, which equates to 52.3 million shares. This means nearly one-third of all company shares are sold short. In fact, Fisker shares are currently on MarketWatch’s list of most shorted stocks.

We believe its time for Fisker to publicly begin playing offense with short sellers. Fisker should start by publicly setting an example with Fuzzy Panda Research. Firstly, go after this short seller with everything they have from a legal standpoint. Publish it for the world to see. Secondly, release a 1-pager rebutting each of the false and misleading allegations. Then, do something that would trigger and force all short sellers to cover their short positions at a much higher share price.

The company can play offense in a number of ways. For example, insiders including founders and executives could begin making open purchases of Fisker stock, the company could announce a new strategic partnership, take on a strategic investment, release new IP, reveal PEAR early, announce Project UFO or a manufacturer for Fisker Platform 3. Regardless of how they do it, its time for Fisker to step up and publicly fight back against all Wall Street short sellers and naysayers.