Fisker price tag just $20 million?

According to a report by Reuters citing anonymous sources, the electric carmaker could soon be sold for just a fraction of what it was worth about a year and a half ago.

The $20 million offer comes from a tag team of investors made up of former GM executive Bob Lutz and Gilbert Villarreal’s VL Automotive and China’s Wanxiang Group.  The price tag is less than the amount of money the company received in grants and loans from the state of Delaware.  The state provided $21.5 million in funding to help the upstart automaker get off the ground.  But little has happened at the company’s facility on Boxwood Road in Newport.

According to Reuters, Fisker told investors that its value was more than $2 billion dollars.  The company has been struggling since its $529 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy was frozen in 2011.

Delaware’s investment in the company included claw-back provisions should Fisker fail to meet employment requirements.  But as that 2015 deadline gets closer, it seems unlikely that Fisker will meet the goal of hiring nearly 2,500 workers at Boxwood Road.

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Reuters says the VL Automotive/Wanxiang offer is one of at least two groups interested in purchasing Fisker.  Whether any of those potential buyers would still be interested in using the Delaware facility is unclear.

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