Sivers Semiconductors: Short Sellers Face a 51% Squeeze as Pipeline Balloons to $799 Million

Nordea Bank raises margins on Sivers short products from May 2026 amid liquidity crunch from restatements for Nasdaq listing; Q1 revenue down but opportunity pipeline surges 77% to $799M.

The cost of betting against Sivers Semiconductors just got drastically more expensive. Nordea Bank will hike base rate margins on all exchange-traded short-selling products tied to the stock from 28 May 2026, citing deteriorating liquidity in the securities lending market and rising borrowing costs. Bear certificates with a -1 factor will carry a margin of 51.5 percent, while those with -2 and -3 factors will see margins of 102.5 percent and 153.5 percent respectively. Mini Future Shorts will face a 50 percent margin. The move affects Nordea’s BEAR SIVERS and MINI S SIVERS series from its December 2024 and December 2025 base prospectuses.

Behind the liquidity crunch lies a story of corporate transformation. Sivers has been restating its financial statements for 2024 and 2025 to align with US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board standards — a prerequisite for its planned secondary listing on the Nasdaq New York. The revisions have been painful: the net loss for 2025 was adjusted to 222.6 million Swedish kronor, up from the previously reported 186.5 million kronor, while net revenue was slightly raised to 306.6 million kronor. The restatements delayed the first-quarter 2026 report, initially scheduled for 20 May, until today, 29 May.

When the Q1 numbers finally landed, they painted a mixed picture. Net revenue came in at 61.9 million kronor, down 22 percent from 78.9 million kronor a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA swung to minus 13.8 million kronor from minus 6.0 million kronor, while the operating loss widened to minus 41.5 million kronor. The company blamed the US government shutdown in late 2025 for pushing back defence-related contract signings, while higher spending on sales resources and preparations for the American listing also weighed on the bottom line. Operating cash flow was minus 49.2 million kronor.

Yet the headline number that has grabbed attention is the opportunity pipeline, which surged 77 percent since the start of the year to hit 799 million dollars by the end of March. Demand is concentrated in three high-growth verticals: AI data centres, satellite communications, and defence. On 15 April, Sivers announced a partnership with Jabil Inc. to develop a 1.6T linear receive optical transceiver module using its distributed-feedback lasers, targeting energy-efficient optical links for hyperscale AI clusters. A strategic LiDAR customer also plans to ramp production from the fourth quarter of 2026, with cumulative revenue potential of between 53 million and 138 million dollars over the product lifecycle. And a leading US defence contractor placed a development order during the quarter.

To fund these ambitions, Sivers raised around 125 million kronor through a directed share issue at 14.50 kronor per share, approved by an extraordinary general meeting on 11 May. Investors included DNB Disruptive Opportunities, Storebrand Sverigefond, and Hudson Bay Capital Management. Then on 19 May, the company secured a further 6.6 million dollars from the Microelectronics Commons program for its EW STAR electronic warfare project, run through the NEMC Hub in collaboration with BAE Systems and MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The project has been extended by another year and aims to modernise US defence infrastructure with broadband antenna arrays capable of simultaneous transmission and reception.

The cash runway is now more secure. Whether the Nasdaq listing materialises — and whether the record pipeline converts into hard revenue — will determine the stock’s trajectory in the quarters ahead. For short sellers already paying a 51.5 percent margin premium, the wait just got a lot more expensive.