Canoo Inc., the electric vehicle startup that has announced plans to move its headquarters to Bentonville, on Monday named board member Greg Etheridge as chief financial officer.
Etheridge follows Ken Manget, who held the role for seven months. Manget was a consultant to AFV Partners LLC, an investment firm led by Canoo CEO Tony Aquila, for more than two years before becoming CFO in January. Canoo did not give a reason for Manget's departure.
"I'm grateful for the hard work that Ken delivered and wish him the best in the future," Aquila said in a statement.
Etheridge has been a member of Canoo's board of directors since 2020. He has agreed to resign his board position by the end of the year to assume the role of CFO.
As the company's top financial executive, he'll assume responsibilities for capital markets, investor relations, and accounting and financial reporting.
Ethridge was previously chief operating officer and a director of Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp. IV, V and VI. He also held director or executive positions at Motorsports Aftermarket Group, MatlinPatterson Global Advisers LLC, FXI Holdings Inc., Gleacher and Co., Imperial Capital LLC, and Jefferies and Company Inc.
Publicly traded Canoo (Nasdaq: GOEV) reported a $70.9 million net loss in the second quarter, an improvement from the $164.4 million net loss, or 68 cents per share, it reported in the same period last year. The company has contracts with Walmart Inc. of Bentonville, NASA and the Department of Defense, but raising cash to fund the start of its manufacturing operations has been a challenge.
The company this month announced it had agreed to pay a $1.5 million civil penalty over misleading revenue projections for the past two years. The SEC also temporarily banned former CEO Ulrich Kranz and former CFO Paul Balciunas from holding board positions at publicly traded companies.
