Elon Musk lead Tesla is planning to raise $2 billion in capital as stock offering, after rejecting the idea blatantly just a few weeks ago. The company will use the raised capital to strengthen its balance sheet and for other corporate measures.
The news however, is a rather surprising one. Just a few weeks back, at the fourth quarter earnings call, the company said that it will not raise any additional capital right now.
Musk himself plans to purchase $10 million worth of stocks. Others like Oracle co-founder and Tesla board member Larry Ellison too are planning to buy a million worth of stocks too.
Additionally, the company has given the lucrative opportunity to underwriters to purchase $300 million worth of additional common stock in a time period of 30 days. If the underwriters deliver, Tesla could end up raising $2.3 billion, a financial figure that will help the company as its capital expenditures are expected to reach as high as $3.5 billion this year.
The capital raise however, is quite conflicting to what CEO Elon Musk and CFO Zack Kirkhorn said during the company’s last earnings call.
Post its recent profitable quarter report, Tesla has seen a massive surge in share prices, thus making it a ripe time to raise external capital. And this is exactly what analysts quizzed CEO Elon Musk about, during the earnings call. At that time, Musk said that the company is planning to spend its resources wisely and that there is no “artificial hold back on expenditures.”
“We’re spending money I think efficiently and we’re not artificially limiting our progress,” Musk said during the January 29 call. “And then despite all that we are still generating positive cash. So in light of that, it doesn’t make sense to raise money because we expect to generate cash despite this growth level.”
CFO Kirkhorn chimed in and reiterated the importance of spending money wisely at this crucial stage, as the company had 2 new vehicle launches in the pipeline, with even more products and factories coming about next year. Thus, the company is being smart about the way it spends resources and not repeat the mistakes of past.
However, when the shares rose more than 35% since January 29, the company just could not resist. And thus, the stock offering.
Meanwhile, the company’s operations in China are going smooth as ever, although the effect of coronavirus is yet to be seen. The company started delivering Model 3 cars in the region from its gigafactory in Beijing, and is now working towards building a heavier variant of it to supply in the market. The company is seeking approval from the government to build a version that is 130 kg heavier than the one it is supplying now.
