LORDSTOWN — Executives of companies affiliated with LAS Capital — the mobility company run by Steve Burns, founder and ex-CEO of Lordstown Motors Corp. that has bid to acquire certain assets of the troubled electric-vehicle company — have historical ties to Burns.

Standing for land, air and sea, LAS Capital provides information on four portfolio companies, three of which are run by men with connections to Burns or Lordstown Motors, on its website: GreenStreet, Blue Innovations Group and Ryse that operate in the battery-powered land, water and air spaces.

The mission is to “bring electrification to common modes of travel we already know about, from boats to three-wheelers, and to use new technology to bring new modes of transportation,” Burns said in a video on the company’s website.

“A lot of us are EV car folks and that experience taught us that EVs isn’t just for the environmental. What we have come to realize, that’s a nice byproduct, but for something to really flourish and for the new to take over the old, it’s got to be better …” Burns said.

“We’ve come to realize when we saw what we did with cars and what others are doing with electric cars, that all of these modalities should be electric,” Burns added.

Lordstown Motors announced late Friday afternoon it and LAS Capital, where Burns is the majority equity holder, signed a $10 million purchase agreement for assets related to the “design, production and sale” of light duty EVs for the commercial market.

The assets could include the battery pack module and hub motor lines for Lordstown Motors’ truck, the Endurance.

The agreement must be approved in U.S. bankruptcy court. A sale hearing is scheduled Oct. 18.

Burns founded Lordstown Motors in 2019 to mass produce electric work trucks and worked out an agreement with General Motors to purchase its former Lordstown small-car assembly plant to manufacture the vehicles for just $20 million.

He left the company in June 2021, without a stated reason by Lordstown Motors, but his departure was in sync with an admission by the company that statements regarding preorders for the company’s first vehicle, the Endurance, were inaccurate.

He was given a $750,000 severance package, paid over 18 months, when he left.

In November 2021, Burns started unloading shares in the company and took away a total of more than $66 million.

GREENSTREET

The chief executive of GreenStreet, which the website states makes a three-wheeled vehicle, is Duane Hughes, former CEO of Cincinnati-area-based Workhorse Group, which Burns also founded, but left in 2019.

When Burns left, Hughes was elevated to CEO.

Workhorse Group was an early stakeholder in Lordstown Motors. An agreement between the companies allowed Lordstown Motors to access certain intellectual property to Workhorse in exchange for a 10% stake and certain royalties.

The 10% was about 16.5 million shares of Class A common stock, which Workhorse Group sold in the third quarter of 2021. The company made $105.1 million from the sale but recognized a loss of about $76.5 million.

Hughes left Workhorse Group in 2021.

The company was a finalist for a multibillion contract to make the next generation of vehicles for the U.S. Postal Service, but was passed over in favor of Oshkosh Defense in Wisconsin. It was thought if Workhorse Group was given the contract, the vehicles would have been made in Lordstown.

The three-wheeler, according to GreenStreet’s website, is powered by single rear-wheel hub motor, has a range of 250 miles and a top speed of 80 mph.

According to GreenStreet’s website, the company’s technical adviser is John Vo, who worked as vice president of propulsion for Lordstown Motors. Vo was at Lordstown Motors when Burns was at the company.

BLUE INNOVATIONS GROUP

Vo also is CEO of Blue Innovations Group. LAS Capital’s website states Vo is the former head of global production at Tesla, but does not mention his time at Lordstown Motors. Neither does biographical information on Blue Innovation Group’s website.

On GreenStreet’s website, however, it mentions Vo helped launch several electric vehicles, including Lordstown Motors’ truck, the Endurance.

Blue Innovations Group was founded in 2022 and is based in Pinellas Park, Florida.

Their first product is a 30-foot, 10-passenger, 800 horsepower boat, according to LAS Capital’s website, which also states the company is “bringing automotive grade EV engineering and mass production techniques to the boating industry.”

According to a December 2022 article in the Tampa Bay Times, Vo last worked for Lordstown Motors, where he and others at the company drew the attention of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for selling shares ahead of problems, the story states.

Vo had to return the profits from making short-swing transactions, the story states.

“I like to forget about that,” Vo told the newspaper.

Also, a member of the company’s board is Julio Rodriguez, chief financial officer at LAS Capital and former chief financial officer for Lordstown Motors.

Rodriguez resigned from the company the same day as Burns, on June 14, 2021. Like Burns, Rodriguez left without a reason, but under the same cloud that preorder statements for the Endurance were inaccurate.

Rodriguez left the company with $200,000 that was to be paid over six months and continued vesting of certain outstanding stock options.

RYSE

The company plans to start production of what it calls the first manned eVTOL (electric vertical take off and landing) aircraft in the fourth quarter of this year, according to LAS Capital’s website.

“We’re here to make personal flight safe, efficient, and accessible to all,” CEO Mick Kowitz is quoted on the website.

Kowitz is a former director for Lordstown Motors. He is listed as a defendant in shareholder derivative case filed in April 2021 in federal court in Delaware as were other Lordstown Motors executives.

The lawsuit was among several filed against the company and company officials after the Hindenburg Research released a damning short-sellers report in March 2021 that characterized Lordstown Motors as a mirage with no sellable product.