Smith Electric Vehicles withdraws IPO

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Smith Electric Vehicles was scheduled to price out its initial public offering last night. Instead, the
Kansas City-based manufacturer announced plans to withdraw its IPO and pursue private financing.

“We were unable to complete a transaction at a valuation or size that would be in the best interests of our company,” Chief Executive Bryan Hansel said in a statement to Reuters.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission two weeks ago, Smith expected to price its 4.45 million shares between $16 and $18, hoping to raise as much as $76 million for the company in the IPO that had been slated for this morning. The electric-car company lost $27.4 million in the first six months of 2012, a jump from the $21.3 million loss for the same period in 2011. The company announced earlier this month that it was cutting its projected output from 620 trucks to 380 trucks for this year.