BANGKOK, THAILAND – 2023/05/18: VinFast displays its vehicles at Future Energy Asia Exhibition 2023 at Queen Sirikit National Convention Center.Nathalie Jamois | Lightrocket | Getty ImagesVinFast’s shares jumped after its U.S. trading debut, vaulting its total market value past some of the world’s largest automakers such as Ford, GM, BMW and Volkswagen.On Tuesday, the Vietnamese electric vehicle maker listed on Nasdaq following the completion of its merger with the U.S.-listed special purpose acquisition company Black Spade Acquisition. A SPAC is a shell company that raises capital through an initial public offering for the purpose of acquiring an existing operating company.Shares of VinFast closed at $37.06 on Tuesday — 270% higher than Black Spade Acquisition’s IPO price of $10 and 68% higher than its Tuesday opening price of $22. Black Spade Acquisition went public in 2021.VinFast shares were down 10% ahead of the open Wednesday.Following the market debut, VinFast is now currently worth $85 billion, according to CNBC calculations. The SPAC merger previously valued VinFast at approximately $23 billion, according to a June filing with U.S. securities regulator.Meanwhile, BMW and Volkswagen are both worth around $69 billion, according to Refinitiv data, with Ford at $48 billion and GM at $46 billion.By market capitalization, Tesla is still the world’s largest automaker at $739 billion and Chinese rival BYD is fourth place with a $93 billion valuation.VinFast is the automaking unit of Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup and was founded in 2017.SPAC is ‘just a way for us to get listed’Analysts have previously said that SPAC shares are extremely volatile due to their speculative nature. Due to macroeconomic headwinds, many sponsors have been forced to scrap their proposed deals, sometimes even before the SPACs have been listed. “We were ready to do a traditional IPO. We pursued the path for almost two years but the markets have been challenging so we decided to decouple the listing from the fundraising. We go …
