Elon Musk's Tesla took just two sessions during the week to raise US$5bn of equity from an at-the-market offering, its second in just three months and its third equity offering this year.
The high-flying electric car maker, whose stock price has soared 650% this year to catapult Musk to the status of the world's second richest man, revealed in a filing late on Thursday it had already completed the ATM during Tuesday and Wednesday's sessions.
The move came as Tesla shares struck a record high of US$654.32 on Tuesday when the ATM was first announced.
Assuming an average price around the US$600 per share mark, Tesla would have needed to issue only 8.3m shares or a small portion of the 250m-plus traded during the first four days of the week.
Having now raised US$12bn of equity this year, Tesla's cash balance rises to US$19.5bn, giving it more firepower as it grows its EV sales and looks to add new factories in Germany and Austin, Texas.
Sales agents Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Societe Generale and Wells Fargo were paid a 0.25% commission or US$12.5m to handle the ATM, down from 0.5% on the September ATM of the same size completed in just four days.
The timing was curious given Tesla shares are set to join the S&P 500 on December 21, a highly anticipated market event expected to generate a hefty US$50bn of demand for its shares from index-hugging funds and an opportunity to issue stock via a follow-on with minimal discount.
Follow-on share sales alongside index inclusion are rare but Facebook executed one in 2013 when it priced a US$3.8bn primary and secondary stock offering that coincided with the addition of its stock to the US equity benchmark.
One senior ECM banker said Musk's decision to trigger the ATM suggested he was unlikely to opt for an index inclusion trade to raise further capital.
"However that could change," the banker said.
One counterintuitive reason to use the ATM now rather than wait until late December for a follow-on may be to avoid share price pressure leading up to index inclusion or the risk that capital market conditions may weaken closer to Christmas.
Though index inclusion is usually a positive catalyst for a stock and has helped push Tesla stock higher in recent weeks, Tesla's high valuation has prompted some analysts to advise investors not to take a market-weight position in the stock.
"We recommend investors not weight Tesla shares in their portfolio in equal proportion to the S&P because Tesla shares are in our view and by virtually every conventional metric not only overvalued, but dramatically so," JP Morgan analyst Ryan Brinkman wrote in a client note during the week.
With a current market cap of close to US$600bn, Tesla will rank as the sixth largest company in the US equity benchmark ahead of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.