Short-seller Hindenburg says no clear answers in Nikola rebuttal

(Reuters) – Shares in Nikola Corp sank 7% on Tuesday after the short-selling research house which has alleged the electric truckmaker misled investors over its technology said the company had failed to address most of its queries.

Nikola has rejected the accusations and threatened to take legal action against short-seller Hindenburg since its research into the company sparked the first of a series of falls in the company’s shares last week.

Bloomberg News reported late on Monday that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was probing Nikola to assess the merits of Hindenburg’s claims that it had misled investors about its business prospects.

“Nikola’s response has holes big enough to roll a truck through,” the short seller said in a new report on Tuesday.

Nikola, which has denied any allegations of wrongdoing and said it had contacted and briefed the SEC on its concerns regarding the short-seller’s report, could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Ayanti Bera in Bengaluru; Editing by Patrick Graham)