VDL Groep, Canoo Explore Partnership

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VDL Groep and Canoo announced that the two companies are exploring opportunities to partner together.

“We appreciate the months of effort VDL Nedcar invested to provide us with a contract manufacturing option, but we have concluded that building in America was better aligned with our mission and current focus to invest in the communities and states that are investing in hightech manufacturing alongside us in creating American jobs and innovation. The support from Oklahoma and Arkansas will allow us to achieve SOP earlier and with less risk on many fronts,” said Tony Aquila, Investor, Chairman & CEO at Canoo. ”While we decided not to move forward with VDL Nedcar, we also concluded that VDL Groep and the Van der Leegte family are the people we want to explore a continuing partnership with as we evaluate the best way and timing to expand Canoo into Europe with less risk and take advantage of advanced manufacturing technologies.”

New Opportunities

“We look forward to continuing our relationship with Tony and the Canoo team, as we will explore new opportunities together,” said Willem van der Leegte, President & CEO of VDL Groep. “We see electric vehicles as a significant economic driver. We are pleased to invest in Canoo and look forward to a long and succesfull relationship.”

Investment

The companies have ceased contract manufacturing discussions at VDL Nedcar, which will better facilitate Canoo’s ability to utilize the incentives from Oklahoma and Arkansas. VDL Nedcar will return Canoo’s investment capital prepayment of €25 million EURO. To underline our relationship VDL Groep will purchase €7.5 million EURO of Canoo stock.