By Daniel Shvartsman

Luminar Technologies (NASDAQ 🙂 today announced they had completed and upsized their convertible notes offering. This will allow them to increase share buybacks.

This company is developing self-driving software and sensors based on lidar. The deal for convertible notes at 1.25% was signed. It also included an increase of $625M gross proceeds. Luminar previously predicted that the deal would generate $608M net proceeds. The company stated that it expects to make use of more than $300,000,000 from the proceeds in order to purchase LAZR shares. plansTo buy shares worth “$250M and more”.

“We have more conviction than ever in our market leadership and business trajectory, and are opportunistically capitalizing on what we believe to be a substantially undervalued and volatile share price,” said Tom Fennimore, Chief Financial Officer of Luminar in the press release.

Apart from the share repurchase program, the company intends to use net proceeds for series production capacity expansion and new commercial wins. Technology roadmap advancement and global expansion are other priorities. The company stated it still expects to be in the series production stage by 2022.

Today’s Luminar share price is 2.8%, amid a strong day for electric car related companies. Tesla (NASDAQ: ) has risen 4.9%. Nikola Corp (NASDAQ): up 16%; and Nio NYSE: up 2.1%. Share buyback news is coming just one year after Luminar was made public by a SPAC acquisition. The shares were also down close to 50% during the year. The company’s revenues have grown this year, but it has not turned a gross profit. It has also seen increasing operating and net losses. This is a reminder that the company was still in its early stages.