Why It Is Now Time To Switch From SBE (Chargepoint) To TPGY (EVBox)

Summary

• This article discusses the industry leaders in charging stations.
• TPGY is valued much cheaper at the moment.
• Charging industry is backed by a lot of giants.

Why it is now time to switch from SBE to TPGY

We have been seeing EV stocks fall into investor favor for some time now. The SPAC merger between EVbox and TPGY is another way to enjoy this green wave. As we enter the mass market stage of electric vehicles now, charging facilities also need to keep up with the increase in EV’s. Chargepoint, the American market leader in charging facilities expects that the total investment in EV infrastructure will reach 190 billion USD by 2030.

Chargepoint (SPAC: SBE)

As the combination between SBE and Chargepoint was the first EV infrastructure SPAC, I would like to illustrate the success of the stock by sharing the underlying chart of the price movements of SBE. At the top of its success the share price reached a maximum of $ 49.48 and the share price is consolidating now around $ 40.

Figure 1: Yahoo Finance, SBE price chart

According to the initial transaction terms, the value of Chargepoint post-merge would be 2.4 billion USD. However, due to the huge increase in share price, this will be an impressive $12.12 billion based on its current share price. There is still no effective merger date, but the business combination and related transactions are expected to close in February 2021.

ChargePoint has a proven and capital-light business model that combines hardware together with high-margin recurring software subscriptions and services with extensive and strong customer relationships. It is important to keep in mind that Chargepoint sells charging stations but you can also acquire them on a subscription base (“Chargepoint as a service”). They do not monetize energy or driver utilization.

The company is active in North America and Europe. In North America they are the de facto leader, as they are 7 times bigger than the second biggest company (SemaConnect), the third company is Blink.

EVBox (SPAC: TPGY)

A second SPAC (TPG Pace Beneficial Finance Corp) has also announced a merger with a charging station company named EVBox. We will take a closer look at this one as we believe that the share price can still rise substantially.

The transaction:

TPG Pace Group raised $350 million through the IPO of a special purpose acquisition company, TPG Pace Beneficial Finance(“Pace Beneficial” or “TPGY”), in October 2020. Concurrent with the IPO, TPGY secured an additional $100 million of Forward Purchase Agreement (“FPA”) commitments, increasing TPGY’s capital base to $ 450 million.

Here below are the key point of the transaction:

Evbox Group will be a Netherlands based company listed on the NYSE Engie will hold more than 40% ownership stake and expects to continue as a key partner TPGY has raised $ 225 million PIPE money The public listed expected market cap is $ 1,394 million with a net cash of $425 million This entry point is only 6,7 x projected revenue in 2021 and 3.6 x projected revenue of 2022

On the 8 ^th of January, EVBox already reached the milestone of 200,000 installed charging points worldwide of which 5,000 are DC fast chargers. We have to emphasize that the company had only 100,000 charging ports worldwide in November 2019.

Despite the lower market cap after merger, EVBox delivered already significantly more charging stations than Chargepoint. Just as Chargepoint, EVBox has a hardware and software branch. The software is offered via the Everon platform.

EVBox is at this moment the undisputed EU market leader in charging ports. They have installed 25% of the AC public charging stations and 35% of the DC public charging ports.

EVBox’ business model revolves around sales of its own EV charging equipment, operating software and additional services for infrastructure. Customers include businesses as well as public institutions and municipalities but also private households. Its product range comprises of three areas: the HomeLine (wall-mounted stations), the BusinessLine (solutions for car parks, work place charging or retail), and the PublicLine (public EV charging on roadsides). Unlike Chargepoint, you can lease the EVBox charging stations. Another difference is that EVBox is more oriented on the European market as it only holds a small American market share. EVBox also started producing fast charging stations.

Deal comparison

	SBE (Chargepoint)	TPGY (EVBox)
Share price	39.62	25.9
Pro-forma market cap in billion dollars	$2.4	$1.394
Net cash target	648 M	425M
PIPE	$225 M	$ 225 M
Number of shares after close of merger	304 900 000	139 000 000
Post-merger market cap based on current share price	$ 11 604 494 000	$ 3 548 670 000
2021 projected revenue	198 000 000	145 200 000
Market cap/revenue	58.61	24.44

Table 1: Comparison of share price

TPGY is trading now at $ 25.53 while SBE has a higher price that amounts $ 38.06. Based on current prices, the post-merger market cap of Chargepoint will be $ 11.6B while TPGY its market cap will only be $ 3.5B. When we divide the market cap by the projected revenue of 2021, we notice that SBE trades at a much higher premium than TPGY based on its revenue base. Even though Chargepoint its revenue is slightly higher, we have to emphasize that TPGY already installed more than 200 000 charging ports.

Pro forma ownership

Chargepoint

                                Figure 2: Presentation Chargepoint 

EVBox

                                Figure 3: Presentation EVBox

When we take a closer look at the deal structure, we notice that both EVBox and Chargepoint raised $ 225M in PIPE money. However, as the market cap of EVBox is going to be lower, the PIPE part represents a higher percentage. This PIPE money can have a downwards pressure on the stock price when PIPE investors get the possibility to sell their initial investment after the lock-up period. Here Chargepoint has an advantage as their PIPE part represents only 7.4%. As TPGY has much more PIPE money, the dilution that will caused by it may be higher than that one of SBE. Therefore it would be a smart move to temporarily cash out before the dilution happens and jump back in after the dilution.

Another big difference is that the initial SPAC IPO investors will hold only 10.3% of the shares of Chargepoint while in the case of EVBox it will be 25%. This is an advantage for TPGY its investors as they will possess a bigger part of the merged company. After this lockup period both PIPE and initial shareholders of Chargepoint or EVBox investors can sell their shares.

However, when we look further at the shareholder structure of TPGY we notice that Engie will still hold a 44% stake in the company after merger. The already ex-CEO of the French electric utility company announced in 2019 the strategic plan of the company for the 2019-2021 period, with an ambition to become the world leader in the zero-carbon transition. The strategic shift includes accelerating its investments in renewable energies and focusing on high-value-added services to the clients. As Engie wants to shift to become a leader in renewable energies, we can assume that they will be a long term shareholder of EVBox and we do not expect them to sell large parts of their commons.

Existing shareholders of Chargepoint include Daimler, BMW, Siemens and Tesla. As the shareholder ownership is more diverse, we expect the chance to be higher that one of them cashes out to reinvest this money in their transitioning core business. As the post-merger valuation of Chargepoint will skyrocket, odds only become higher that this will happen. Therefore, it is possible that Chargepoint faces harder downwards pressure from their initial investors that cash-out post-merger.

Projected revenue in million $	2020	2021	2022	2023
Chargepoint	135.00	198.00	346.00	602.00
EvBox	84.70	145.20	272.25	450.12
Difference	59.39%	36.36%	27.09%	33.74%

Table 2: Comparison of projected revenue

When we look at the projected revenues, we notice that EVBox plans to partly catch up for the difference in revenue. Both companies foresee a strong revenue increase as there will be more electric cars on the road.

Projected EBITDA in million $	2021	2022	2023	2024
Chargepoint	-121	-93	-36	86
EVBox	-96.8	-54.45	2.42	Not given

Table 3: Projected EBITDA

Another positive point for the investors in EVBox is that it plans to have a positive EBITDA one year earlier than Chargepoint. On the other hand, we have to emphasize that this are only projections and they can differ from the reality.

Figure 4: Investor Presentation EVBox

EVBox is active in areas where a date has already been set for the complete phasing out of combustion engines. Chargepoint's focus is more in North America, which has not yet set a date to stop using internal combustion engines. However, they realize this and therefore they have started to focus more on the European market. On the other hand it is expected that the Biden administration will likely follow the European trend.

Other competitors

In Europe there is also competition from NewMotion that installed already more than 100,000 charging stations in Europe and Japan. Furthermore it is a member of the Shell Group. As Shell Group has to transition its business model we may assume that they will continue to invest in Newmotion. Another competitor is EnelX but this company was only recently founded in 2017 and has to date only 30,000 charging stations. EnelX doesn’t only focus on charging stations as they also create microcrids and energy efficiency solutions.

Conclusion

Despite the high valuation of the companies, we are convinced that both Chargepoint and EVBox have an ideal businessmodel poised for future growth. As TPGY is valuated lower at its current share price, it has more room to rally. Furthermore, Engie will be a long term stable shareholder that will reduce downwards pressure. The conversion to non-combustion engines will continue and it is one of the key targets on the policy agendas of many Western countries. We recommend taking TPGY out of portfolio temporarily when the dilution starts, given the size of the PIPE but it should be repurchased after the dilution took place.