The co-founders of Electric Last Mile Solutions have resigned following an internal investigation that discovered the top executives purchased equity in the company at substantial discounts to market value shortly before the commercial electric vehicle startup went public via a merger with blank-check company Forum Merger III, TechCrunch reports.
President and CEO James Taylor and Chairman Jason Luo both resigned effective immediately following the internal investigation conducted by a special committee, according to a regulatory filing posted late Tuesday. The filing decimated the stock price of the company, which trades under the ELMS ticker symbol on Nasdaq. The stock price, which closed at $5.59 yesterday, has since dropped nearly 40% and is now trading at $3.36.
Forum Merger III Stockholders approved the business combination with Electric Last Mile in June 2021. Since going public, shares have declined steadily from the post-merger high of $11.56.
When the deal was announced in December 2020, the transaction reflected a pro forma implied equity value for the combined company of approximately $1.4 billion. Read more.
