Tesla is selling about $2 billion of common stock, taking advantage of its surging shares just two weeks after CEO Elon Musk said raising capital didn’t make sense.
Assuming underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional securities, the latest offering could bring in about $2.3 billion in proceeds, Tesla said in a statement. That will help fund as much as $3.5 billion in capital expenditures this year, a plan the company disclosed less than an hour earlier in a regulatory filing.
Tesla shares climbed 5 per cent to close the day at $804.00 after analysts said the offering will both shore up the company’s balance sheet and support plans for growth. The stock has more than tripled since the company released the first of two straight positive earnings reports in October.
The offering is a sudden turnabout for Musk, who said during an earnings call two weeks ago that Tesla could fund itself without Wall Street’s help. The company had been spending sensibly and not holding back on expenditures in ways that would limit progress, he said.
“So in light of that, it doesn’t make sense to raise money because we expect to generate cash despite this growth level,” Musk said on Jan. 29. Tesla will use proceeds from the offering to strengthen its balance sheet and for general corporate purposes. The expected trading date for the shares is said to be Friday.
But while the offering is “somewhat contrary to management’s recent commentary,” it’s also prudent, said Ben Kallo, an analyst at Robert W. Baird. Some investors will argue the company should be raising more, he wrote in a report to clients.
“It’s the smart thing to do,” said Joe Osha, a JMP Securities analyst. “This allows them to accelerate this pace of capacity they have planned, so it’s good news.”
The high end of Tesla’s projected capital outlays for 2020, disclosed for the first time in its 10-K filing, represents a 164 per cent increase from 2019 when stingy spending helped conserve cash. Last year’s $1.33 billion expenditures were well below its initial plan for as much as $2.5 billion.
In the filing, Tesla disclosed that the Securities and Exchange Commission closed its investigations into statements that Musk made in 2018 about taking the company private, as well as his prior predictions about Model 3 production rates.
But on Dec. 4, the same day it closed those investigations, the SEC also issued a subpoena seeking information from Tesla “concerning certain financial data and contracts,” including regular financing arrangements.
Tesla doesn’t report sales by region or breakdown of revenue by country until regulatory filings that follow its earnings reports. On Thursday, the company said revenue rose 70 per cent in China, 65 per cent in the Netherlands and 48 per cent in Norway last year. But in the U.S. — by far its largest market — revenue fell 15 per cent to $12.65 billion.
Tesla had 48,016 full-time employees at the end of 2019, down slightly from 48,817 from a year earlier.
The maker of the Model 3 and S sedans and the Model X crossover is projecting at least 500,000 vehicle deliveries this year, a more than 35 per cent jump from 2019. Musk has accelerated the rollout of Tesla’s next vehicle, the Model Y crossover, to this quarter from initial plans for the fall.
Tesla is also planning an electric pickup and is ramping up its first overseas assembly plant, located in Shanghai, and building another one in Germany.
(Automotive News)
