Volt Lines confirms Swvl breakup: Turkish mobility business Volt Lines’ management team is back in the driver’s seat after taking back control of the company from Swvl, it confirmed in a press release (pdf) on Thursday. The two sides agreed to terminate the USD 65 mn acquisition in December and go their separate ways less than a year after announcing the merger, the statement said. Swvl announced the unwinding in a filing earlier this month. Company representatives were not immediately available for a comment when Enterprise reached out yesterday.

It was a good eight-month run: The short duration of the acquisition saw the Turkish mobility company more than double its revenues and turn profitable, which will help it exercise its plans to expand overseas this year. “During our time with Swvl we had the chance to focus on the fundamentals which helped transform the Volt Lines business and thus more than double its value since the acquisition,” Volt Lines founder and CEO Ali Halabi said in the release. “Swvl and Volt Lines benefited a lot from each other, however the macro-economic climate made it very difficult for the [transaction] to conclude.”

It’s shaping up to be a tough year for Swvl: The company is facing delisting warnings from the Nasdaq after seeing its share price collapse as much as 98% since its IPO last April. The company has slashed more than half of its workforce, cut back on routes, and exited Pakistan in a bid to rein in costs

Reverse stock split has propped up its share price: Swvl’s share price jumped to USD 4.14 during trading on Thursday after the company announced a 1-for-25 reverse stock split following a second delisting warning, before falling back to close the week at USD 3.18. The “reverse share split will allow the company to regain compliance with the Nasdaq USD 1.00 minimum bid price requirement,” the company said in a statement announcing the move on Wednesday.

SOUND SMART- Reverse stock splits reduce the number of shares in circulation, boosting the share price. Swvl’s 1-for-25 reverse split merged 25 ordinary shares into a single share. The company has received warnings from Nasdaq to both bring its share price up above USD 1.00 for 10 consecutive days by 1 May 2023 and to raise its market cap above USD 50 mn by July, or face delisting.