Getaround stock crashes after carsharing company goes public in SPAC deal

Published

1 year ago

December 9, 2022

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Paul Chinn | San Francisco Chronicle | Getty Images

Carsharing company Getaround made its public market debut Friday through a merger with blank-check company InterPrivate II Acquisition Corp. The company saw its share value drop more than 65%, reflecting the chilly environment for both SPACs and ridesharing companies.

Getaround, which made the very first CNBC Disruptor 50 list in 2013, allows users to rent cars and trucks from each other via a digital marketplace. The company launched in 2009 and is available in more than 1,000 cities in the United States and Europe.

The merger had valued the company at about $1.2 billion, and Getaround said it planned to use the funds to invest in new markets and expand its products.

SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies, raise capital through an IPO to acquire or merge with existing companies, aiming to eventually take the companies public in a two-year time frame. Though SPACs rose in popularity in 2020 and 2021, they tend to significantly underperform in comparison to traditional IPOs.

The appetite for SPACs, which often back early-stage growth companies with little earnings, have diminished in the face of rising rates as well as elevated market volatility. For SPACs that did go public, they haven’t fared well: the CNBC SPAC Post Deal Index has fallen over 60% in the past year.

Public ridesharing companies have been struggling as well. Lyft shares plummeted in November after the company reported worse-than-expected revenue and a slowing active user count, and the business announced the same month that it would be laying off 13% of its workforce.

Uber reported a third-quarter net loss of $1.2 billion in its third quarter, but the company has seen its stock price rise over the last month after beating analyst estimates and issuing strong fourth-quarter guidance. Still, Uber’s stock is down more than 38% year-to-date even as the company has cited booming travel, easing lockdowns and shifts in consumer spending, and it shares remains well below their 2019 IPO price of $45.

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Elliot Kroo, CTO and co-founder of Getaround, told CNBC in May that recent increases in car prices led many people to use carsharing services as well as Uber and Lyft.

“What’s happening in transportation is a slow moving kind of shift from ownership to access, and that’s building momentum over time,” he said. “More and more people are looking at alternative transportation options, realizing that car ownership is very expensive.”

However, prices for both new and used cars have dropped from record highs, also putting pressure on online car dealer Carvana, which is reportedly facing bankruptcy risk or in the least a sharp rise in concerns among its creditors about the financial outlook.

Getaround had raised approximately $600 million in funding. Its financing, like many start-ups over the past decade, grew quickly, from a series C round in 2017 of $45 million to a series D in 2018 of $300 million, led by Softbank, a deal Toyota also took part in.

Amid the pandemic, when the company said its usage fell more than 75%, it raised $140 million from Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus investment arm Reinvent Capital, among other new investors.

In 2019, it spent $300 million to acquire Drivy, a carsharing platform in Europe.

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Technology

Meta shares plunge on weak revenue guidance even as first-quarter results top estimates

Published

11 hours ago

April 24, 2024

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Meta shares plunge on weak revenue guidance even as first-quarter results top estimates

Meta shares plunged more than 11% in extended trading on Wednesday after the company issued a light forecast, which overshadowed better-than-expected first-quarter results.

Here are the key numbers:

Earnings per share: $4.71 per share vs. $4.32 per share expected by LSEG
Revenue: $36.46 billion vs. $36.16 billion expected by LSEG

Revenue increased 27% from $28.65 billion in the same period a year earlier, the fastest rate of expansion for any quarter since 2021. Net income more than doubled to $12.37 billion, or $4.71 per share, from $5.71 billion, or $2.20 per share, a year ago.

One reason for the pop in net income is that, while revenue growth accelerated, sales and marketing costs dropped 16% in the quarter from a year earlier.

Meta said it expects sales in the second quarter of $36.5 billion to $39 billion. The midpoint of the range, $37.75 billion, would represent 18% year-over-year growth and is below analysts’ average estimate of $38.3 billion.

The company no longer reports daily active users and monthly active users. It now gives a figure for what it calls “family daily active people.” That number was 3.24 billion for March 2024, a 7% increase from a year earlier.

Meta has raised investor expectations due to its improved financial performance in recent quarters, leaving little room for error. The stock is up about 40% this year after almost tripling last year. In February 2023, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors it would be the “year of efficiency,” which initiated the rally.

At the time, Zuckerberg said the company would be better at eliminating unnecessary projects and cracking down on bloat, which would help Meta become a “stronger and more nimble organization.” The company cut about 21,000 jobs in the first half of 2023, and Zuckerberg said in February of this year that hiring will be “relatively minimal compared to what we would have done historically.”

Headcount declined by 10% in the first quarter from a year earlier to 69,329.

Capital expenditures for 2024 will be $35 billion to $40 billion, an increase from a prior forecast of $30 billion to $37 billion “as we continue to accelerate our infrastructure investments to support our artificial intelligence (AI) roadmap,” Meta said.

Average revenue per user in the quarter was $11.20, Meta said.

The Facebook parent has been clawing back digital ad market share after a dismal 2022. At that time, the company was reeling from Apple’s iOS privacy update and macroeconomic concerns that led many brands to rein in spending.

Zuckerberg spearheaded an initiative to rebuild the ad business with a focus on AI. On the company’s last earnings call in February, finance chief Susan Li said Meta has been investing in AI models that can accurately predict relevant ads for users, as well as tools that automate the ads-creation process.

Advertising revenue, which accounts for the vast majority of Meta’s business, jumped 27% to $35.64 billion.

Meta is benefiting from a stabilizing economy and surge in spending from Chinese discount retailers like Temu and Shein, which have been pumping money into Facebook and Instagram in an effort to reach a wider swath of users. Some analysts have warned that slower spending from China-based advertisers could be a source of concern in the first quarter and as the year progresses.

The company’s Reality Labs unit, which houses the company’s hardware and software for development of the nascent metaverse, continues to bleed cash. Reality Labs reported sales of $440 million for the quarter and $3.85 billion in losses, bringing total losses since the end of 2020 to over $45 billion.

Analysts expected the division to show an operating loss of $4.31 billion for the quarter.

Executives will discuss the company’s results on a call with analysts at 5 p.m. ET.

Technology

Meta’s Reality Labs posts $3.85 billion loss in first quarter

Published

12 hours ago

April 24, 2024

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Meta's Reality Labs posts .85 billion loss in first quarter

Facebook co-founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, speaks at an Oculus developers conference while wearing a virtual reality headset in San Jose, California.

Glen Chapman | AFP | Getty Images

Meta shows no signs of substantially trimming its losses from investing in the metaverse, as competition heightens between the Facebook parent and Apple in the virtual reality market.

In its first-quarter earnings report Wednesday, Meta disclosed that its Reality Labs unit recorded a $3.85 billion operating loss. Revenue in the metaverse division was $440 million, up about 30% from $339 million a year ago and representing only around 1% of Meta’s total sales for the quarter.

Analysts were expecting a $4.31 billion operating loss and sales of $512.5 million for the quarter, according to StreetAccount.

Reality Labs has now lost more than $45 billion since the end of 2020, when Meta first began reporting the business segment separately.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called the metaverse “the next frontier,” imagining a digital world that facilitates both productivity and recreation. He changed the name of his company from Facebook to Meta in 2021 to reflect his vision for the future of computing.

For now, developing metaverse technology remains a fledgling and costly effort.

The company unveiled in September the Quest 3 VR headset, the latest version of its mixed reality hardware, with a starting price of $499. Apple started selling its $3,499 Vision Pro in February, touting a so-called “spatial computing” experience.

Meta announced Monday that it will partner with third-party hardware companies to create new VR headsets using the same Meta Horizon operating system that powers its Quest headsets. Zuckerberg said that while Apple “basically won out” in the phone market with its closed ecosystem, Meta’s move aims to ensure the “open model defines the next generation of computing.”

Technology

IBM to acquire HashiCorp in $6.4 billion deal, reports another revenue miss

Published

12 hours ago

April 24, 2024

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IBM to acquire HashiCorp in .4 billion deal, reports another revenue miss

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna appears at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 16, 2024.

Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | Getty Images

IBM shares slipped as much as 6% in extended trading on Wednesday after the hardware, software and consulting provider said it would acquire cloud software maker HashiCorp and reported first-quarter revenue that was lower than analysts had predicted.

In a statement, IBM announced that it intends to pay $35 per share in cash for HashiCorp in a deal with a $6.4 billion enterprise value, net of cash. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that IBM was getting close to acquiring HashiCorp, sending shares upward. Bloomberg said earlier on Wednesday that IBM was looking to offer $35 per share.

The deal would be accretive to adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in the first full year after close, and accretive to free cash flow in the second year after close. IBM said it expects the transaction to close by the end of 2024. Dave McJannet, HashiCorp’s CEO, will report to Rob Thomas, IBM’s senior vice president in charge of software, if the deal goes through, a spokesperson said.

HashiCorp would complement Red Hat, which has contributed to IBM’s revenue growth since the $34 billion acquisition in 2019. IBM now sells Red Hat’s version of the Linux operating system for use on multiple public clouds, making it a neutral entity. HashiCorp pioneered open-source software that developers rely on to control cloud infrastructure. Premium versions of the Terraform cloud-management software and other products have brought revenue to HashiCorp.

In 2021 HashiCorp shares started trading on the Nasdaq. But revenue growth has slowed, and the company has continued to report losses. Still, it’s adding revenue at a faster pace than IBM.

HashiCorp shares moved 4% higher in extended trading following the acquisition announcement.

Here’s how IBM did in comparison with the consensus among analysts polled by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $1.68 adjusted vs. $1.60 expected
Revenue: $14.46 billion vs. $14.55 billion expected

IBM’s revenue increased around 1.5% year-over-year during the quarter, according to a statement. This marks the company’s third revenue miss in the last five quarters.

Revenue from software, at $5.90 billion, increased about 6% and was below the $5.96 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.

IBM’s consulting revenue came in at $5.19 billion, down slightly and just under the $5.20 billion StreetAccount consensus.

Infrastructure revenue totaled $3.08 billion. It declined 0.7% but came in higher than the StreetAccount consensus of $2.94 billion.

During the quarter, IBM said it was providing its 160,000 consultants with artificial intelligence assistants to boost productivity, and the company completed the divestiture of The Weather Company to Francisco Partners.

Notwithstanding the after-hours move, IBM shares are up about 13% so far this year, outperforming the S&P 500 index, which is up 6% over the same period.

Executives will discuss the report with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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