Lordstown Motors falls 10% as Morgan Stanley says the EV maker sold its Ohio factory for a fifth of its value

• Lordstown Motors stock has lost more than a third of its value in three days of trading.
• Morgan Stanley cut its price target to $2 from $8 following the company’s deal with Foxconn.
• The EV maker sold its factory for $230 million – a fifth of the value of analyst estimates.
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Lordstown Motors sank 10% Tuesday, marking the third consecutive day of losses, as Morgan Stanley said the stock has even farther to fall after the EV startup announced plans to sell its factory for a fraction of the worth.

The stock has lost a third of its value in three days of trading after the company announced a $230 million sale of its Ohio factory to Foxconn, the top assembler of Apple iPhones. The deal is contingent on the two reaching a manufacturing agreement and Lordstown providing Foxconn with certain rights to future vehicle programs.

Morgan Stanley analysts led by Adam Jonas said they had previously valued the factory, which once housed 10,000 GM workers, at $1.3 billion.

“The agreed plant value is roughly one-fifth the value we had assumed in our prior price target,” Morgan Stanley wrote, slashing its price target to $2 from $8 and dropping the stock rating to underweight from equal-weight. The stock traded at $5.24 at 9:38 a.m. in New York.

Also last week, Lordstown Motors said it will continue with plans to build a limited number of its Endurance electric trucks through the first part of 2022.

To that, the analysts said they had assumed the Endurance project would be canceled as there’s not a “path to commercial viability at any appreciable scale.”

“In our opinion, continuing with the Endurance likely exposes the company to the risk of further elevated cash burn and liquidity risks even in a contract manufacturing scenario which involves shifting much of the fixed cost burden (plant and most labor) to Foxconn,” Jonas wrote.

The EV maker has already faced several production delays, a cash shortage, and an inquiry from the US Securities and Exchange Commission on statements made about demand for the Endurance.

The company originally planned to begin mass producing the Endurance this fall, but now is aiming to start deliveries of its pickup truck next year.