By Kate Yuan

Apollo Future Mobility will acquire WM Motor Global Investment, a subsidiary of Chinese EV maker WM Motor (威马汽车), for $2 billion, according to Hong Kong Stock Exchange's announcement on January 12. This is reportedly WM Motor’s backdoor listing plan through Apollo.

WM has already held 23.67% of the shares of the Hong Kong-listed Apollo before this transaction. After the deal, its shares will reach about 70%.

There were early signs of this acquisition. Apollo announced on December 5, 2022 that it had plans to acquire a company engaged in smart electric vehicles, saying the target company’s customers are young and tech-savvy users in China.

Meanwhile, Apollo will also place new shares valued at about HK$3.918 billion ($501.5 billion), 70% of which will be used to develop WM's high-performance supercars and smart electric passenger vehicles, and 20% will go to stabilize the supply chain system of batteries and chips.

Due diligence work will be done in the next two to three months and it likely that VM Motor can complete the listing in the second quarter of this year, according to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange announcement.