Nikola shareholders will vote on the inventory sale plan on Thursday

Nikola TRE FCEV2

Courtesy Nikola

Electric heavy-duty truck maker Nikola will learn later on Thursday whether its shareholders have approved its plan to raise money by selling more shares.

Nikola is hoping to raise more capital to boost production of its new heavy-duty fuel cell electric truck, which is due to launch later this month. But before the company can sell additional shares to raise money, it must increase the total number of shares it can issue from 800 million to 1.6 billion. This move requires shareholder approval.

Nikola first presented the plan to its shareholders at its annual general meeting in June. Although 77% of voters were in favour, the total number of votes cast was not enough to pass the proposal. Nikola is incorporated in Delaware and under that state law at least half of all outstanding common shares of a company must vote to accept a stock increase proposal.

The company adjourned its AGM by a month to encourage more shareholders to vote. The gathering will resume Thursday at 4:00 p.m. ET. At that point, Nikola will announce whether the proposal has passed — or whether it will be adjourned again to try to get more shareholders to vote.

This isn’t the first time Nikola has had to adjourn a shareholders’ meeting to gather more votes on a proposal to sell new shares. Last year’s annual meeting was adjourned three times before Nikola won enough votes to increase the total number of outstanding shares from 600 million to 800 million.

Nikola said Wednesday it built 33 of its battery-electric Tre semi-trailer trucks and shipped 45 to its dealerships in the second quarter. Its dealers sold 66 trucks to customers in the reporting period, a total of 99 since the beginning of 2023.

Nikola said on May 9 that it had halted production of the battery-electric Tre to focus on launching the fuel-cell version of the Tre, which has significantly longer range. At that time, it was said that twelve fleet customers had ordered a total of 140 of the upcoming fuel cell trucks.

Nikola is working on building a network of hydrogen fueling stations to support upcoming fuel cell trucks. On Tuesday, it said the California Transportation Commission, in partnership with the state’s Department of Transportation, awarded her a $41.9 million grant to build six of those Southern California train stations.

Nikola is expected to release its second-quarter results in early August.