Volvo Cars IPO - A case study of Geely's decision and process to list Volvo Cars on Nasdaq Stockholm

Abstract: On 29 October 2021 Volvo Car AB began trading on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange. The listing was the culmination of 5 years of attempted corporate actions, pivoting through an aborted IPO attempt in 2018, an abandoned merger with its parent Geely Auto in 2020, and finally the successful listing itself. When it went public, the company was immediately one of the largest publicly traded entities in the Nordic region. The household nature of the brand, scale of the listing, valuable subsidiaries, strong majority owner, relations with China at a time of global trade tensions, and the dynamic evolution the company was undergoing as it raced towards electrification led to many profound questions. This paper seeks to investigate how Volvo Car AB navigated the unique listing process for the Swedish market, whilst maximizing its value for shareholders old and new at a time when close competitor Tesla had become the most highly valued vehicle OEM in the world.