East Stone Acquisition Corp. (ESSC) Shareholders Approve ICONIQ Deal

East Stone (NASDAQ:ESSC) announced this morning that its shareholders have approved its business combination with EV-maker ICONIQ during a special meeting held on November 10.

The special meeting was originally scheduled for November 7, but was later adjourned to November 8, and then adjourned once again to November 10.

The SPAC did not disclose the reason for the adjournments, but as of the original redemption deadline on November 3, East Stone had received requests to redeem a total of 3,111,717 ordinary shares. If all of these requests were satisfied, this would remove 95.98% of East Stone’s trust.

Nonetheless, the parties closed the deal on Friday, November 11. The combined company will retain the NWTN name, and its Class B ordinary shares and warrants are expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol “NWTN” today, November 14.

East Stone announced its $2.5 billion combination with ICONIQ on April 18, 2022. ESCC started off by bringing in an estimated $33.5 million into the deal through its current trust and originally supplemented this with a $200 million PIPE at $10.26 per share from an unnamed investor. The SPAC was able to secure a total of four PIPE rounds for the deal, but terminated two of those four subscriptions in September, bringing the total PIPE proceeds to $400 million.

The Chinese ICONIQ electric car brand is headquartered in Dubai, with four vehicle models under development. Upon closing of the business combination, Xiaoma (Sherman) Lu, CEO and director of East Stone, and Michael Cashel, director of East Stone, have joined NWTN’s Board of Directors.