15 May 2023, Bengaluru, India
The CEO of automotive technology company Luminar Technologies, Austin Russell, has successfully acquired an 82 percent stake in Forbes Global Media Holdings. Austin struck a deal with the media house, after which the media house’s value is at nearly $800 million. Forbes Global Media Holding is the media house that publishes Forbes Magazine.
According to the latest reports, the 28-year-old Austin Russell owns Forbes. The Wall Street Journal reported that Russell’s stakes include the remaining portion of the company. The remaining portion of the company is owned by its namesake family, which sold 95% of the company to the Hong Kong-based investor group Integrated Whale Media back in 2014.
Since canceling its merger with a special-purpose acquisition company in June of last year, when the market deteriorated, and investors lost interest in SPACs, Forbes has virtually been on sale. Now, Integrated Whale Media will retain a minority stake. According to a report, Russell will serve as a visionary for the Forbes brand and won’t be involved in day-to-day operations.
The recent developments have led Forbes to look to appoint a new board consisting of American media, technology, and artificial intelligence experts. Apart from all the efforts, Integrated Whale Media will retain one board seat.
The new stakeholder of Forbes, Luminar Technologies, is set to be the first automotive technology company to enable next-generation safety and autonomous capabilities for production vehicles. Luminar Technologies develops vision-based lidar and machine perception technologies primarily for self-driving cars. It currently reported a market cap of $2.1 million.
“Luminar is firing on all cylinders and successfully proving our ability to execute, industrialize and capitalize on our business. Over the past quarter, leading automakers have continued to expand our technology across their vehicle lineups, betting on the future of their ADAS and autonomous roadmaps in partnership with Luminar,” said the CEO of Luminar Technologies, Austin Russell.
During this year’s quarter one, Luminar reported that it exceeded its revenue guidance and is maintaining a strong balance sheet for accelerating business growth and reaching positive cash flow. A statement read that Luminar posted revenue of $14.5 million, up 112 percent year-over-year. To add further to the report, Luminar also looks to acquire at least 100 percent revenue growth in 2023.
Source – Business Insider
