The Ebro automobile company rings the bell and is listed on the Spanish stock exchange for the first time. The resurgent Spanish car brand is debuting on the BME Growth market priced at 6.88 euros by company CEO Pedro Calef and EV Motors President Rafael Ruiz. “The Ebro is coming back to life. This is the start of an exciting stage. Welcome to the investors who are joining us now,” commented Pedro Calef.
The reindustrialization and recovery of the Ebro brand takes a new step in its history with its entry into the stock market as a listed company with a free floating (shares outstanding) by 25%. Likewise, the company recognizes that it has just formalized a new agreement with Chery, a Chinese company allied with the Spanish brand, to accelerate the speed of growth of the company which will manufacture its vehicles from Barcelona. Likewise, the company recognizes that a new capital increase of up to 75 million euros attract new investors who enable the development of production.
The lever with which Ebro intends to attract investors is the expectation of “very significant” growth in sales over the next five years, according to the company’s estimates. This will also have an impact on the profits of the company which will start assembling vehicles in the former Nissan Catalan factory. At the end of the current year, the company is expected to reach 36 million euros, which would increase until reaching 1,918 million euros in 2029.
This would mean going from the losses expected in 2024 to 250 million euros in gross operating profit within five years. Likewise, Ebro expects the resurgent Spanish automaker’s profitability to accelerate from 2026, where it could close above 10%. By 2029, they hope increase your profitability up to more than 12% which would still be below what other listed European companies like Volkswagen, Mercedes or Stellantis offer, which closed last year with an EBITDA margin of around 16% on average.
EV Motors’ alliance with Chinese automaker Chery will enable the resurgent Ebro brand to streamline its vehicle production and assembly line in the coming years. A priori, the Barcelona factory should start operations in mid-November with the S700 and S800 modelswhich will each have two versions, one gasoline and the other plug-in hybrid. And next year new ranges of vehicles will begin to be included, as already announced by elEconomista.es. In 2025, the S400 models would enter production and a “downsized” version would arrive in the latter part of the year. The opening of 30 sales centers is also planned this year and 75 more next year.
A priori, the company faces the same risks as the rest of European car manufacturers, even if its alliance with Chery could favor Ebro if a tariff war between China and the European Union focuses on vehicles already manufactured and not so much on the parts that the Spanish company would use to assemble its vehicles in the national territory.
Likewise, Ebro warns in its brochure that Chery could withdraw its investment for next year of “almost 30 million euros” in EV Motors if the company “does not reach achieve sufficient occupancy volume of the production capacity of the Free Zone factory” and other agreements such as subscription to the capital increase or public licenses, “ideally, before December 31”.
