Former LMC CEO burns off more stock

2.5M shares sold on Thursday make for a total of 7.7M this week

LORDSTOWN -- Steve Burns, founder and former CEO of Lordstown Motors Corp., has sold more of the stock he owns in the electric-vehicle startup, this time 2.5 million shares, according to a regulatory filing Thursday.

The transaction is Burns' second large sell-off this week and third since November.

A document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows Burns sold his common stock shares in multiple transactions Wednesday at prices ranging from $2.40 per share to $2.52 per share. At the average per share price of $2.44 listed on the filing, the transaction is valued at $6.1 million.

On Monday, Burns disposed of more than 5.2 million common shares at an average per share price of $2.56, putting the value of the transaction at $13.5 million.

On Nov. 11, Burns sold more than 3.2 million shares at an average per share price of $5.88, placing that transaction's value at $18.8 million.

Burns still owns more than 35.3 million shares, or about 18 percent of the company, according to another regulatory filing Thursday.

He founded the company in 2019 to mass produce electric work trucks and worked out an agreement with General Motors to purchase its former Lordstown assembly plant to manufacture the vehicles, but abruptly left the company in June without a stated reason by Lordstown Motors.

His departure, however, was in sync with an admission by the company that statements regarding preorders for the company's first vehicle, the Endurance, were inaccurate.

He was given a $750,000 severance package when he left.

Also this week, it became public that GM, which invested in Lordstown Motors early to help the company buy the factory, sold its approximately 5 percent stake in Lordstown Motors.

GM sold the 7.5 million shares of common stock it held in a series of open-market transactions in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to a GM spokesman Tuesday.

GM acquired the shares as part of a special-purpose acquisition deal in October 2021 that made Lordstown Motors a publicly traded company through its merger with New York-based DiamondPeak Holdings Corp.

The shares had an equity value of $75 million initially. In exchange, GM gave Lordstown Motors $25 million cash and in-kind contributions that helped LMC complete the purchase of the plant.

Lordstown Motors expects to begin commercial production and sales of the truck in the third quarter; however, projected numbers are muted. The company expects to produce 3,000 trucks through 2023.

Also, it's still working through a deal to sell the plant to Taiwan-based technology and electronics company Foxconn for $230 million. That hinges on the companies finalizing a contract manufacturing agreement that would have Foxconn make the Endurance.

The companies also are trying to secure a joint-venture agreement to co-design and develop vehicle programs, an agreement Lordstown Motors executives say is critical to raise $250 million more needed to launch the Endurance in the third quarter of this year.

Part of the $250 million would be used on hard tooling to make the truck, executives said in an analyst call Monday.