In this photo illustration the UnitedHealth Group logo displayed on a smartphone screen.
Sheldon Cooper | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
UnitedHealth Group has paid out an additional $1 billion to providers that have been impacted by the Change Healthcare cyberattack since last week, bringing the total amount of funds advanced to more than $3.3 billion, the company said on Wednesday.
UnitedHealth, which owns Change Healthcare, discovered in February that a cyber threat actor had breached part of the unit’s information technology network. Change Healthcare processes more than 15 billion billing transactions annually, and one in every three patient records passes through its systems, according to its website.
The company disconnected the affected systems “immediately upon detection” of the threat, according to a filing with the SEC. The interruptions left many health-care providers temporarily unable to fill prescriptions or get reimbursed for their services by insurers.
Many health-care providers rely on reimbursement cash flow to operate, so the fallout has been substantial. Smaller and mid-sized practices told CNBC they were making tough decisions about how to stay afloat. A survey published by the American Hospital Association earlier this month found that 94% of hospitals have experienced financial disruptions from the attack.
As a result, UnitedHealth introduced its temporary funding assistance program to help providers in need of support. The company said the $3.3 billion in advances will not need to be repaid until claims flows return to normal. Federal agencies like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have introduced additional options to ensure that states and other stakeholders can make interim payments to providers, according to a release.
UnitedHealth has been working to restore Change Healthcare’s systems in recent weeks, and it expects some disruptions will continue into April, according to its website. The company began processing a backlog of more than $14 billion in claims on Friday, and on Wednesday said, “claims have begun to flow.”
Shares of UnitedHealth have fallen more than 6% since the attack was disclosed.
Late last month, the company said the ransomware group Blackcat is behind the attack. Blackcat, also called Noberus and ALPHV, steals sensitive data from institutions and threatens to publish it unless a ransom is paid, according to a December release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Department of State on Wednesday announced it’s offering a reward of up to $10 million for information that could help identify or locate cyber actors linked to Blackcat.
UnitedHealth said Wednesday that it’s “still determining the content of the data that was taken by the threat actor.” The company said a “leading vendor” is analyzing the impacted data. United Health is working closely with law enforcement and third parties like Palo Alto Networks and Google‘s Mandiant to assess the attack.
“We continue to be vigilant, and to date have not seen evidence of any data having been published on the web,” UnitedHealth said. “And we are committed to providing appropriate support to people whose data is found to have been compromised.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, wrote a letter to UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty on Monday requesting information about the “scope and extent” of the breach.
Raskin asked Witty for information about when Change Healthcare notified its clients about the breach, what specific infrastructure and information was targeted and what cybersecurity procedures the company has in place. The committee requested written responses “no later” than April 8.
“Given your company’s dominant position in the nation’s health care and health insurance industry, Change Healthcare’s prolonged outage as a result of the cyberattack has already had ‘significant and far-reaching’ consequences,” Raskin wrote.
The Biden administration also launched an investigation into UnitedHealth earlier this month due to the “unprecedented magnitude of the cyberattack,” according to a statement.
File photo of Todd McKinnon, chief executive officer of Okta Inc.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Shares of Okta popped more than 18% in extended trading Tuesday after the identity management company released third-quarter results that beat analysts’ estimates and offered rosy guidance.
Here’s how the company did:
Earnings per share: 67 cents adjusted vs. 58 cents expected by LSEG
Revenue: $665 million vs. $650 million expected by LSEG
Okta helps companies manage employees’ access to applications or devices with features such as single sign-on and multifactor authentication. The company swung to profitability, reporting net income of $16 million, or 9 cents per share, during the quarter, compared with a net loss of $81 million, or 49 cents per share, in the same period last year.
Revenue increased 14% from $569 million a year ago, according to a release. The company reported $651 million in subscription revenue for the quarter, beating the $635 million average analyst estimate, according to Street Account.
“Our solid Q3 results were underpinned by continued strong profitability and cash flow,” Okta CEO Todd McKinnon said in a statement. “The focused investments we’ve made in our partner ecosystem, the public sector vertical, and large customers are materializing in our business with each of these areas contributing meaningfully to top-line growth.”
For the fourth quarter, Okta said it expects to report revenue between $667 million and $669 million, topping the $651 million average estimate, according to LSEG. The company expects to report earnings of 73 cents to 74 cents per share for the period, which also exceeded estimates.
Prior to the close, Okta shares were down 10% for the year, while the Nasdaq is up 30% over that stretch.
Okta will host its quarterly call with investors at 5 p.m. ET.
Marc Benioff, chief executive officer of Salesforce, speaks during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 18, 2024.
Halil Sagirkaya | Anadolu | Getty Images
Salesforce shares were up 9% on Tuesday after the company’s fiscal third-quarter earnings report showed revenue and fiscal fourth-quarter guidance that exceeded analysts’ expectations.
Here’s how the company did compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:
Earnings per share: $2.41 adjusted vs. $2.44 expected
Revenue: $9.44 billion vs. $9.34 billion expected
The company’s revenue grew 8% year over year during the fiscal third quarter, which ended Oct. 31. Its net income was $1.5 billion in the quarter, up 25% from $1.2 billion a year ago.
Salesforce said it is expecting fiscal fourth-quarter sales of between $9.90 billion and $10.10 billion. Analysts were projecting $10.05 billion in fourth-quarter sales.
The company said it expects earnings per share of between $2.57 and $2.62 in the fourth quarter, compared with analysts’ expectations of $2.65.
Salesforce also raised the low end of its revenue guidance, expecting a range of $37.8 billion to $38 billion for its fiscal 2025. That’s up slightly from $37.7 billion to $38 billion previously. The new range puts the midpoint for Salesforce’s fiscal 2025 revenue guidance at $37.9 billion, ahead of analysts’ expectations of $37.86 billion.
“We delivered another quarter of exceptional financial performance across revenue, margin, cash flow, and cRPO,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in a statement. “Agentforce, our complete AI system for enterprises built into the Salesforce Platform, is at the heart of a groundbreaking transformation.”
In a call with analysts, Benioff boasted about Salesforce’s latest artificial intelligence push, including the company’s AI-powered chatbots dubbed Agentforce, which investors are closely monitoring for growth. Salesforce’s Agentforce product is an example of so-called AI agent technology. Several companies have said they believe that these advanced chatbots represent the next logical step from ChatGPT and other related tools powered by large language models.
“We’re delivering these incredible Agentforce capabilities as well,” Benioff said. “This is a bold leap in the future of work, where AI agents let humans unite to transform all of our customer interactions.”
Benioff also revealed that he ruptured his achilles tendon on a recent birthday scuba-diving trip to Fakarava, an atoll in French Polynesia. Benioff expressed disappointment that the hospital that treated him couldn’t schedule his follow-up appointments using AI agents.
“That is the message to our customers, which is how are you going to give some of your people a break, let them get back to their strategic work, let them focus on what really matters,” Benioff said.
The company in August announced that Amy Weaver would step down from her role as chief financial officer but remain in the position until the company appoints a successor, after which she will become an advisor. That same month, activist investor Starboard Value revealed that it boosted its position in Salesforce by roughly 40% in the second quarter following the firm issuing a letter earlier in the year saying that Salesforce was continuing to move “in the right direction” in regard to improving its profit margin.
Starboard Value released a presentation in October in which it noted that Salesforce “can continue to become more efficient and more profitable.”
Entrepreneur Brian Singerman (R) and Noelle Moseley arrive at the Tenth Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, California, on April 13, 2024.
Etienne Laurent | Afp | Getty Images
Brian Singerman, one of the earliest employees of Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, said on Tuesday that he’s stepping down as a general partner.
Singerman, who joined the firm 17 years ago and became a partner four years later, wrote in a post on X that he’s moving into the role of partner emeritus and will stay on as an “investor and strategic advisor.” Singerman is best known for supporting the firm’s investments in Elon Musk’s SpaceX and defense-tech companies like Anduril.
In exiting the partner ranks, Singerman leaves Founders Fund with three general partners: Thiel, Napoleon Ta and Trae Stephens.
Thiel helped launch Founders Fund in 2005 and has since turned it into one of the leading venture firms in the country, thanks to early bets on Facebook, SpaceX and Palantir, which he co-founded. Keith Rabois left the firm earlier this year and returned to Khosla Ventures, where he worked before joining Thiel.
“From its inception and still today, FF is the place where talented, unconventional thinkers are encouraged to follow their convictions and make world-changing bets,” Singerman wrote in his post.
It’s been a tough few years for the venture industry, with IPOs virtually drying up in late 2021 due, at the time, to rising inflation and interest rates. There have been signs of life of late, with a few companies indicating plans to go public next year, but the highest-valued private companies have yet to indicate when they’ll test out the market.
Bloomberg reported on Monday that SpaceX is considering a tender offer that would value the rocket company at $350 billion, up from $210 billion earlier this year.