Business

Best Buy on Tuesday cut its full-year sales forecast.
The retailer missed Wall Street’s quarterly revenue expectations.
It expects full-year comparable sales to decline by between 2.5% and 3.5%, compared to its prior expectations of a 1.5% to 3% drop

A Best Buy store in Woodbridge, Virginia, on May 21, 2024.
Nathan Howard | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Best Buy on Tuesday cut its full-year sales forecast as it missed Wall Street’s quarterly revenue expectations and a fresh batch of iPhones and AI-enabled laptops weren’t enough to drive higher sales.
The consumer electronics retailer said it now expects full-year revenue to range from $41.1 billion to $41.5 billion, compared to prior guidance of $41.3 billion to $41.9 billion. It expects full-year comparable sales to decline by between 2.5% and 3.5%, compared to its prior expectations of a 1.5% to 3% drop. Comparable sales includes sales online and at stores open for at least 14 months.

Shares of Best Buy were down about 3% in premarket trading Tuesday.
In the company’s earnings release, CEO Corie Barry said it saw “softer-than-expected demand.” She pinned that on “a combination of the ongoing macro uncertainty, customers waiting for deals and sales events, and distraction during the run-up to the election, particularly in non-essential categories.”
But, she added, in the first weeks of the current quarter, consumer demand has picked up again as holiday sales gain momentum and election concerns ease.
“We continue to see a consumer who is seeking value and sales events, and one who is also willing to spend on high price-point products when they need to or when there is new, compelling technology,” she said in the release. “Thus, we are balancing our optimism in both the industry and our unique positioning with a pragmatic approach to likely uneven customer behavior going forward.”
Here’s what the retailer reported for its fiscal third quarter, compared with what Wall Street expected, according to a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $1.26 adjusted vs. $1.29 expected
Revenue: $9.45 billion vs. $9.63 billion expected

In the three-month period that ended Nov. 2, Best Buy’s net income rose to $273 million, or $1.26 per share, from $263 million, or $1.21 per share, a year earlier.
Net sales fell to $9.45 billion from $9.76 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Best Buy is waiting for a wave of shoppers to replace old devices and upgrade to new, higher-tech ones after an approximately two-year sales slump in the consumer electronics category. A mix of factors have dragged down the retailer’s sales, including the spike in purchases of items like laptops, home theater systems and kitchen appliances during the Covid pandemic; the pullback in discretionary purchases as Americans spent more on food and other necessities due to inflation; and the shift back to spending on services, including travel and dining out.
Over the past few quarters, CEO Barry and CFO Matt Bilunas have said they anticipate this year to be one that brings “increasing industry stabilization.” Barry has also spoken about Best Buy’s anticipation that new gadgets, including Apple’s fresh collection of iPads as well as artificial intelligence-enabled laptops from Microsoft, will drive sales.
Yet the debut of those devices wasn’t enough to meaningfully lift Best Buy’s quarter. Comparable sales declined by 2.9% across the business and by 2.8% in the U.S.
Best Buy said weakness in sales of appliances, home theaters and gaming contributed to the comparable sales decline, but was offset in part by growth of computing, tablets and sales in the services category. The company offers services, such as installing tech in customers’ homes.
Digital sales were also soft, decreasing 1% year over year in the U.S.
As of Monday’s close, shares of Best Buy are up about 19% so far this year. That’s less than the S&P 500’s approximately 26% gains during the same period. Best Buy closed on Monday at $93.03, bringing its market value to $19.98 billion.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates. More

Abercrombie & Fitch raised its full-year guidance and said it is expecting a strong holiday shopping season.
The apparel company, which also runs Hollister, had struck a cautious tone earlier this year, but now expects to end its fiscal year on a high note.
During the quarter, Abercrombie’s former CEO Mike Jeffries was arrested for sex trafficking, but the scandal didn’t appear to affect sales.

An Abercrombie & Fitch store stands in midtown Manhattan on October 24, 2024 in New York City. 
Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Abercrombie & Fitch isn’t giving up its crown any time soon. 
The apparel company issued strong holiday guidance on Tuesday after posting its sixth straight quarter of double-digit sales growth and another quarter of results that topped expectations. The recent arrest of the company’s former CEO Mike Jeffries for sex trafficking did not appear to affect results.

Here’s how Abercrombie did in its third fiscal quarter compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $2.50 vs. $2.39 expected
Revenue: $1.21 billion vs. $1.19 billion expected

The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended Nov. 2 was $131.98 million, or $2.50 per share, compared with $96.2 million, or $1.83 per share, a year earlier. 
Sales rose to $1.21 billion, up around 14% from $1.06 billion a year earlier. 
For the all-important holiday shopping quarter, Abercrombie is expecting sales growth of 5% to 7%, ahead of the 4.8% growth that analysts had expected, according to LSEG. For the full year, the company is expecting sales to rise between 14% and 15%, higher than the 12% to 13% range it previously anticipated. That new outlook is higher than the 12.1% growth analysts had expected, according to LSEG. 
Despite the better than expected guidance, Abercrombie shares dropped about 3% in premarket trading.

In a news release, CEO Fran Horowitz struck a positive note, leaving out the concerns she’d mentioned in the previous quarter about the “increasingly uncertain environment.” 
“With broad-based growth across regions and brands, we continue to execute at a high level, leveraging our regional playbooks and operating model. Each of our regions grew double-digits in the quarter, with the Americas growing 14%, EMEA growing 15% and APAC growing 32%,” said Horowitz.
The Abercrombie and Hollister brands posted comparable sales growth of 11% and 21%, respectively. Horowitz noted the strong performances lapped growth of 26% for Abercrombie and 7% for Hollister last year.
Under Horowitz’s direction, Abercrombie has become one of the retail industry’s biggest winners. As it laps the strong performance it posted last year, it’s continuing to build on those numbers.
To keep gaining momentum, Horowitz is looking to international markets for growth. Abercrombie has also gone into new categories, such as its wedding collection and recent partnership with the NFL. It’s also focused on developing its Hollister chain, which caters to Gen Z shoppers, and ensuring the brand is differentiated from Abercrombie, which caters to millennials. 
During the quarter, sales at Hollister were up 14%, accounting for nearly half of all revenue. 
As retailers gear up for Black Friday and the duration of the holiday shopping season, it appears as if some of the dim sentiment clouding the back half of the year has evaporated after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. 
For example, Abercrombie and Dick’s Sporting Goods – which both reported earnings on Tuesday – struck cautious tones when reporting earnings over the summer, but that sentiment was replaced with bullishness now that the election is over. 
Consumer sentiment has improved since Trump’s election and analysts are hopeful that certainty in the election results – regardless of who won – will be a boon for spending. More

Amgen said its experimental weight loss injection helped patients lose up to 20% of their weight on average after a year in a critical mid-stage trial.
The company said it did not observe a plateau, which indicates the potential for further weight loss beyond 52 weeks.
The data shed light on how MariTide may measure up to blockbuster weight loss injections from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and a crowded field of treatments being developed by other drugmakers.

The Amgen logo is displayed outside Amgen headquarters in Thousand Oaks, California, on May 17, 2023.
Mario Tama | Getty Images

Amgen on Tuesday said its experimental weight loss injection helped patients with obesity lose up to 20% of their weight on average after a year in a critical mid-stage trial, as the company races to join the booming obesity drug market. 
The drug, MariTide, also helped patients with obesity and Type 2 diabetes lose up to 17% of their weight after a year. The company said it did not observe a plateau in either group of patients, which indicates the potential for further weight loss beyond 52 weeks. MariTide was taken monthly or even less frequently in the trial — which could offer an advantage over the popular weekly injections on the market.

But shares of Amgen fell roughly 7% in premarket trading Tuesday, as the results appear to be at the lower end of Wall Street’s lofty expectations for the drug. Ahead of the data, several analysts said they wanted MariTide to show weight loss of at least 20% in the phase two trial, with some hoping for up to 25%. 
Wall Street has been eagerly awaiting the trial results, which shed light on how Amgen’s drug may measure up to blockbuster weight loss injections from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and a crowded field of treatments being developed by other drugmakers.
Amgen only released data on the first of two year-long parts of the trial, which was designed to test different dose sizes, schedules and regimens of MariTide. The trial’s main goal was to measure the amount of weight loss, but it also examined how long participants could go between injections and still shed pounds.
Roughly 11% of patients discontinued treatment because of any adverse side effects, while less than 8% stopped specifically due to gastrointestinal side effects.
The company will use the results of the first part “to put the fine details” on the design of its late-stage study on the treatment, which is “already deep into planning,” Amgen Chief Scientific Officer Jay Bradner said in an interview earlier this month. 

Amgen has said MariTide could offer quicker weight loss, possibly better weight maintenance and fewer shots than weekly injections such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound. That could boost Amgen’s odds of winning a slice of the weight loss drug market, which some analysts forecast could be worth $150 billion a year by the early 2030s.
Late-stage studies on Wegovy showed that it led to 15% weight loss over 68 weeks, while Zepbound helped patients lose more than 22% of their weight over 72 weeks. 
MariTide brings a new approach to weight loss compared to the existing drugs on the market because it is a so-called peptide antibody conjugate, which refers to a monoclonal antibody linked to two peptides. The peptides activate receptors of a gut hormone called GLP-1, while the antibody blocks receptors of another hormone called GIP hormone. 
That’s unlike Eli Lilly’s obesity drug, Zepbound, which activates both GIP and GLP-1. Wegovy activates GLP-1 but does not target GIP, which may also affect how the body breaks down sugar and fat.
Shares of Amgen have soared this year in anticipation of the mid-stage trial data. That rally lost steam in recent weeks as one analyst raised questions about MariTide’s potential side effects related to bone density. Amgen has said it has no concerns about MariTide’s bone density data.

Trial design, data

The first part of the phase two trial followed 592 patients, including 465 patients with obesity and 127 with both obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The trial examined MariTide across 11 different patient groups, where researchers tested a variety of regimens and dosing levels – 140, 280 and 420 milligrams. 
For example, some groups used a quick dose escalation, which refers to starting patients at a lower dose of MariTide and gradually increasing it over four weeks until they reached a higher target dose. Others had a slower dose escalation over 12 weeks. 
Several groups took MariTide once a month, while one group took the highest dose of the drug every other month. Bradner noted that Type 2 diabetes patients are “known to respond less favorably to weight loss medicines,” so Amgen did not put them in any groups that used dose escalation or less frequent dosing regimens. 
Amgen invited patients to participate in the second part of the trial, which examines how durable MariTide’s weight loss is. The company is “interested to see how quickly people who lost weight rebound when they come off the medicine,” Bradner said. 
The second part of the trial also evaluates any progressive weight loss after the initial year on MariTide and tests even less frequent dosing of the drug. Amgen has not said when it will release data from the second part of the trial.
Patients who continued the trial were randomly sorted into several groups. 
For example, patients who took 140-milligram doses of MariTide in the first part of the trial will either continue taking that dose or switch to a placebo for another year, which will measure how long-lasting MariTide’s weight loss is. Some people who took 280-milligram doses in the first part of the trial will take lower doses of the drug for a year. 
Amgen is also testing a quarterly schedule among some patients who took 420-milligram doses in the first part of the trial. That means patients will get a shot once every 12 weeks.  More

Kohl’s CEO Tom Kingsbury is stepping down on Jan. 15, to be replaced by current Michaels CEO Ashley Buchanan.
Kohl’s has been struggling to return to growth as consumers increasingly move away from department stores.
Buchanan previously spent time at Walmart and its Sam’s Club division.

Incoming Kohl’s CEO Ashley Buchanan and current CEO Tom Kingsbury.
Courtesy: Michael’s | Kohl’s

Kohl’s is getting a new CEO, its third since 2018.
The off-mall department store’s current CEO Tom Kingsbury is stepping down effective Jan. 15. He will leave the position he held first on an interim basis starting in late 2022, and then permanently since early 2023.

Michaels CEO Ashley Buchanan will take over the top job at Kohl’s as Kingsbury departs, after leading the crafting retailer since 2020. Prior to his time at Michaels, Buchanan was at Walmart and its Sam’s Club division for 13 years.
Kohl’s shares fell about 3% in extended trading following the announcement.
At the world’s largest retailer, he held the roles of chief merchandising and chief operating officer for Walmart U.S. e-commerce and chief merchant at Sam’s Club before that. Buchanan is currently on the board of Macy’s, but will be stepping down from that role.
Kingsbury will remain with Kohl’s in an advisory role to Buchanan and stay on the board until he retires in May. Kohl’s doesn’t intend to replace Kingsbury and will reduce the board size by one seat.
Buchanan will step in just after the critical holidays end and as the retailer closes its fiscal year. There’s a lot of work to be done at a time when department stores are struggling to resonate with shoppers who have more options than ever before. While Kohl’s off-mall physical format has insulated it a bit more than other department stores, it has had a difficult several years.

Kohl’s shares fell 17% during Kingsbury’s interim period from Dec. 2, 2022 to Feb. 2, 2023 and then dropped a further 45% since. Kingsbury hasn’t been able to return sales to growth at Kohl’s. Its comparable store sales, a key metric for retailers, have fallen for the past 10 quarters.
Kingsbury took over as CEO after Michelle Gass left Kohl’s to become president and then eventual CEO of Levi Strauss. Kingsbury had been a member of the Kohl’s board since 2021. He previously served as CEO of Burlington Stores from 2008 to 2019. More

Starbucks baristas are not able to view and manage their schedules because of a ransomware attack on one of the company’s vendors.
The coffee company said its store leaders and baristas are working around the outage manually until it is resolved, and trying to ensure employees get paid.
The interruption has not affected customers directly.

The Starbucks logo is displayed above one of its cafes in London on Aug. 13, 2024.
Hollie Adams | Reuters

A ransomware attack on one of Starbucks’ software vendors has disrupted how the coffee chain’s baristas view and manage their schedules, the company said Monday.
Starbucks said it is working closely with the vendor to resolve the issue. The company did not disclose the name of the third party.

The outage affects Starbucks’ employee platform that shows baristas their schedules and allows the company to track how many hours employees have worked. Store leaders and baristas are currently working around the outage manually, and the company said it is ensuring that employees will receive pay for all hours worked despite the disruption.
The interruption has not affected customers directly, and Starbucks said it is continuing to serve people in its cafes.
The Wall Street Journal first reported news of the outage’s effect on Starbucks.
As ransomware attacks have surged, 2024 is on track to be one of the worst years on record. By mid-2024, more than 2,300 incidents had already been reported, according to a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
— CNBC’s Kate Rogers contributed reporting for this story.

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State Farm is growing its investment in women’s sports.
The insurance company said its ads featuring women’s sports are creating new engagement.
The brand has partnered with USC basketball player JuJu Watkins, and Unrivaled, the new women’s basketball league.

State Farm has signed USC star JuJu Watkins to an NIL deal as it increases its investment in women’s sports.

State Farm is furthering its investment in women’s sports with two new deals.
The insurance giant announced on Monday that it had signed college basketball star JuJu Watkins to an NIL, or “name, image and likeness,” deal. Last week, the company also announced its sponsorship of Unrivaled, the new 3×3 women’s basketball league.

“We want to make sure we represent the diversity of customers that we serve,” said Kristyn Cook, State Farm’s chief agency, sales and marketing officer.
State Farm will kick off the NIL partnership with Watkins starring as a “new neighbor” in a co-branded ad spot with mascot/spokesman Jake from State Farm.
Watkins, a former five-star recruit, finished her freshman season at the University of Southern California, averaging 27.1 points per game. Now in her second season for USC, she has helped lead her team to a 4-0 start.
“It’s an honor to partner with State Farm. Not only are they one of the biggest brands in sports, they’ve also been investing in basketball and in the women’s game for decades,” Watkins said in a statement.
Meanwhile, State Farm’s deal with Unrivaled, which kicks off its inaugural season in January, will give the insurance company a visible presence across Unrivaled properties throughout its season and postseason.

State Farm’s investments in women’s sports now include the National Women’s Soccer League, the Women’s National Basketball Association, National Collegiate Athletics Association basketball regular season and women’s Olympic basketball and volleyball.
Last year, the company signed its first NIL deal with basketball phenom Caitlin Clark.
Historically, State Farm’s support of women’s sports dates back years. The insurance company featured an ad in 2015 with former WNBA star Sue Bird.
“We’re very proud of having a decadelong investment in women’s sports in particular. And so we’ve seen the business value firsthand,” Cook said.
State Farm said its investment in women’s sports is already moving the needle.
The company has found that TV spots featuring Clark were 46% more effective in driving consumer engagement than an average State Farm ad, according to analytics firm EDO. State Farm saw an additional 28% boost in effectiveness when the spots aired during her Iowa Hawkeyes games. On Thursday, the insurance agency released a new ad featuring Clark, titled Rookie Move.
Cook said the company’s marketing data shows investments in women’s sports are not only profitable, but the fan base is also digitally savvy and loyal.
She said more and more women are becoming small business owners, and others are making more financial decisions, so State Farm’s strategy to be a part of women’s sports is not just important, but it also makes smart business sense.
“I think every brand should be asking, ‘How should women’s sports be part of the business strategy?'” Cook said. More

Macy’s posted preliminary third-quarter results but delayed its full earnings report as it investigates an accounting issue.
The company said it discovered erroneous reporting of delivery expenses from one employee.
The retailer said third-quarter sales fell, and expects to post full-year guidance by Dec. 11.

A shopper carries a Macy’s bag on Market Street in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. 
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Macy’s on Monday posted preliminary third-quarter results and said it would delay its full earnings release as it completes an investigation of an accounting issue.
The company was slated to report its quarterly earnings before the opening bell on Tuesday.

In a statement Monday, Macy’s said its third-quarter sales fell 2.4% to $4.74 billion. Comparable sales for its owned and licensed businesses, plus its online marketplace, dropped 1.3%.
Macy’s did not post earnings figures for the third quarter. The retailer said it expects to release its full results, along with fourth-quarter and full-year guidance, by Dec. 11.

Macy’s said it found “an issue related to delivery expenses in one of its accrual accounts” while preparing its quarterly results. After an independent investigation, the company found that one employee who handled “small package delivery expense accounting” made erroneous entries to hide about $132 million to $154 million in delivery expenses from the fourth quarter of 2021 through this year’s fiscal third quarter. The company said it had about $4.36 billion in delivery expenses during that time.
The retailer added the actions did not affect its cash management and vendor payments, and said the employee no longer works at the company.
“At Macy’s, Inc., we promote a culture of ethical conduct. While we work diligently to complete the investigation as soon as practicable and ensure this matter is handled appropriately, our colleagues across the company are focused on serving our customers and executing our strategy for a successful holiday season,” CEO Tony Spring said in a statement.

In the news release, Spring touted progress on efforts to close struggling namesake stores and get back to growth. It has been stepping up staffing and merchandising efforts at 50 of its Macy’s stores and plans to open more locations of Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, its two stronger performing brands.
In the three-month period, the company said that comparable sales at the first 50 of its Macy’s stores to get additional investment rose 1.9% year over year. That marked the third consecutive quarter of growth at those stores.
At Bloomingdale’s, comparable sales rose 3.2% on an owned-plus-licensed basis, including the third-party marketplace. And Bluemercury comparable sales rose 3.3%, marking the 15th consecutive quarter of comparable sales growth for the beauty brand.
That owned-plus-licensed metric includes owned and licensed sales, which encompass merchandise that the retailer owns and items from brands that pay for space within its stores, along with the company’s third-party online marketplace.
Macy’s announced in February that the company would close about 150 – or nearly a third – of its namesake stores and invest in the roughly 350 locations that remain. It plans to close the locations by early 2027. It has been selling some of those mall anchor stores, but has not disclosed which ones.
In the release on Monday, Macy’s said asset sale gains totaled $66 million and were higher than its expectations.
At the Macy’s stores that will remain open, comparable sales were down 0.9% on an owned-plus-licensed basis, including the third-party marketplace.
Spring said comparable sales in November at all three brands are “trending ahead of third quarter levels.”
Macy’s credit card revenues dropped $22 million, or 15.5%, year over year to $120 million for the quarter. That was offset, in part, by growth of Macy’s Media Network, the company’s advertising business. Revenue rose by $5 million, or 13.9% year over year, to $41 million in the quarter.
Macy’s shares fell about 3% in premarket trading Monday.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates. More

After years of spending capital freely on all-electric and autonomous vehicles, automakers are starting to pull back.
It takes a significant capital investment every time an automaker launches a new product or updates current models, causing a spending ripple effect throughout the global supply chain.
Now, General Motors and Ford Motor are cutting billions in fixed costs, including laying off thousands of workers, while others such as Nissan Motor, Volkswagen Group and Chrysler parent Stellantis are taking even more drastic measures to reduce headcounts and trim spending.

Electric vehicle start-up Lucid on Sept. 28, 2021 said production of its first cars for customers has started at its factory in in Casa Grande, Arizona.

DETROIT — The auto industry has an addiction. It’s a “capital junkie” that’s been on a yearslong binge of unprecedented spending on all-electric and autonomous vehicles. And now, it’s waking up from the bender and entering rehab.
Automakers from Detroit to Japan and Germany are attempting to lower costs and reduce expenses amid economic concerns, billions of dollars wasted on self-driving vehicles and a prolonged, if not uncertain, return on investment in EVs amid slower-than-expected adoption.

Those issues come in addition to weakening consumer demand, higher commodity costs, and some Wall Street analysts sounding the alarm about global automotive sales and profits peaking, as China’s industry continues to expand.
General Motors and Ford Motor are cutting billions in fixed costs, including laying off thousands of workers, while other automakers such as Nissan Motor, Volkswagen Group and Chrysler parent Stellantis are taking even more drastic measures to reduce headcounts and trim spending.
“Western [automakers] are increasingly focusing on capital efficiency, meaning likely lower spending, more collaboration, and restructured EV portfolios to prioritize profits,” Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a September investor note.

The automotive industry is a global web of companies producing tens of thousands of parts to assemble a new vehicle. It requires significant capital investment every time an automaker launches a new product or updates current models, causing a spending ripple effect throughout the global supply chain.
But in recent years, automakers have put such investments in overdrive with self-driving and electric vehicles. Companies invested tens of billions of dollars into the technologies, most with little to no short- to midterm returns on their investments.

Research and development costs, as well as capital spending for the top 25 automotive companies, have increased 33% from roughly $200 billion in 2015 to $266 billion in 2023, according to auto consulting firm AlixPartners.
Such costs for GM increased about 62% from 2015 to 2023, to $20.6 billion (excluding sold European operations), despite a 38% drop in global sales during that time. That compares with other increases during that timeframe of 42% for Volkswagen; 37% for Toyota Motor; 27% for Fiat Chrysler’s successor Stellantis; and 18% for Ford.
EV startups Rivian Automotive and Lucid Group have burned through $16 billion and $8.8 billion, respectively, in free cash flow since 2022. Both companies are attempting to ramp up vehicle production and narrow their losses.
It’s not the first time the auto industry has blown through money to then attempt quickly to cut costs. These kinds of periods happen in cyclical industries such as autos, but could the spending have potentially been avoided — or at least alleviated — this time around?

Capital junkie

The latest cost-cutting cycle comes nearly a decade after an infamous Wall Street presentation by late-Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne called “Confessions of a Capital Junkie.” The April 2015 report highlighted the industry’s massive capital spending on overlapping or niche products that Marchionne was convinced could be solved through consolidation and shared capital spending.

Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne
Brendan McDermid | Reuters

The report, made by Marchionne amid failed merger attempts with Fiat Chrysler that included GM, has reemerged as automakers cut costs and announce tie-ups between companies such as Volkswagen and Rivian Automotive as well as GM and Hyundai Motor to share costs.
“We believe the concepts within this deck [are] highly insightful and as relevant today as ever,” Jonas said in a November 2023 investor note invoking Marchionne’s junkie manifesto, which he has continued to reference.

‘The Sergio Quotient’

Using a measurement called “The Sergio Quotient,” Jonas points out that the average S&P 500 company spends its market cap in capex plus research and development in about 50 years.
GM and Ford spend their market cap in 1.9 and 2.6 years, respectively. Only Volkswagen, at 1.8 years, was lower than GM among traditional automakers. Toyota was the best suited, at 14.4 years.
As of September, Ford and GM ranked 402 and 403 out of 406 nonfinancial companies in the S&P 500 regarding their capital spend compared with their market cap.
Former Ford executive Joe Hinrichs brought up Marchionne’s 2015 manifesto during an automotive conference this summer, condemning the industry for its capital waste.

“The auto industry is famous for destroying capital. That’s a bad thing,” said Hinrichs, now CEO of railroad company CSX. “If you waste billions of dollars on autonomous vehicles or billions of dollars on electrification, you should be held accountable. That’s shareholder money.”
Most capital spending by automakers isn’t wasted, but the industry isn’t as efficient as other sectors, with minimal return on invested capital.
The ROIC of traditional, mainstream automakers is roughly seven or less, while tech companies such as Google parent Alphabet are at roughly 22, according to FactSet.
“We’ve seen major CapEx spend with extended ROIs, given the slowdown … and low utilization in manufacturing plants,” said Rebecca Evans, a principal at management consulting firm Roland Berger. “We have been looking extensively at cost.”
In particular, automakers have not seen ROIC on autonomous vehicles and EVs.
GM continues to invest in its embattled autonomous vehicle unit Cruise despite already spending more than $10 billion on it since acquiring the company in 2016.
Ford also has wasted billions of dollars on warranty and recall costs as well as strategy shifts. It recently canceled production of a three-row electric SUV after significant development cost the automaker roughly $1.9 billion in expenses and cash expenditures. That included $400 million for the write-down of certain product-specific manufacturing assets.

Rehab

After years of spending, Nissan, Volkswagen and Stellantis are conducting massive business restructurings that include layoffs, production cuts and other cost-saving measures. Others such as Ford, GM, and EV startups Lucid and Rivian are attempting to lower costs but their efforts are not as severe as the others.
“Have we got to cut costs with every car we’re making? Absolutely,” Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson told CNBC in October, citing the company’s cost-cutting task force. “We’re working assiduously on that.”

Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson poses at the Nasdaq MarketSite as Lucid Motors (Nasdaq: LCID) begins trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange after completing its business combination with Churchill Capital Corp IV in New York City, New York, July 26, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters

Volkswagen is in the midst of a massive cost-cutting program that uncharacteristically involves layoffs and potential plans to shutter plants in its home country of Germany.
VW Chairman and CEO Oliver Blume said in an interview published earlier this month that such actions are needed to remedy years of ongoing problems at the German carmaker, which reportedly expects to spend 900 million euros ($975.06 million) to execute the turnaround.
“The weak market demand in Europe and significantly lower earnings from China reveal decades of structural problems at VW,” Blume told German paper Bild am Sonntag, according to Reuters.
The rise of Chinese automakers has been eating away at the profits of traditional automakers such as VW, GM and others that were once dominant players in China – the world’s largest car market that has quickly moved from being a consumer of vehicles to exporter.
Nissan, Honda and BMW, among others, also blamed declines in China for missing earnings expectations or restructuring needs. GM, which has raked in billions from China, is restructuring operations there, including attempting to renegotiate with its major Chinese partner, SAIC.

Stock chart icon

Stocks of GM, Ford and Chrysler parent Stellantis in 2024.

While losing ground in China, GM has been among the most aggressive in spending on EVs and self-driving vehicles. But, to its credit, remains highly profitable and had roughly $27 billion of free cash flow at the end of the third quarter. It remains one of the standouts in balancing investment and cost-cutting efforts, while remaining profitable.
GM CFO Paul Jacobson on Wednesday reconfirmed plans for the automaker to level capex to around $11 billion going forward.
“What we’ve established over the last couple of years, I think, is a pretty disciplined track record of capital expenditures,” Jacobson said during a Barclays conference. “You want to be in an organization that has more ideas than it can fund. Our job is to allocate that and prioritize it.”

Partnerships

Newer automakers such as Rivian and Lucid are cutting costs and raising capital to stay afloat as the companies continue to lose tens of thousands of dollars on each EV they sell.
Lucid’s largest shareholder, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, has invested billions of dollars into the company, while Rivian has teamed up with Volkswagen for an up to $5.8 billion software deal, which is expected to close by the end of this year.

A provided image of Oliver Blume, CEO of Volkswagen Group and RJ Scaringe, founder and CEO of Rivian, as the companies announce joint venture plans on June 25, 2024.
Courtesy: Business Wire

GM and Hyundai this summer entered into an agreement to explore “future collaboration across key strategic areas” in an effort to reduce capital spending and increase efficiencies. The companies have not announced any actions since then.
Marchionne argued such partnerships were effective but not enough going forward. He said companies could save billions of dollars annually in capital by sharing costs involving commoditized parts such as transmissions, standardized safety equipment and advanced driver assistance systems.
“It’s fundamentally immoral to allow for that waste to continue unchecked,” Marchionne said in the three-hour conference call with global industry analysts in 2015. “Something needs to give. It cannot continue like this.”

Mary Barra, chair and CEO of General Motors, and Euisun Chung, executive chair of Hyundai Motor Group, during the signing of an agreement between the two companies to explore future collaboration across key strategic areas.
Courtesy image

Some things have changed, but there have not been large systemic shifts. Major automotive industry mergers and joint ventures don’t always result in long-term successes. Many fall apart before producing significant results.
Both VW and Rivian have experienced such failures with Ford in recent years. Rivian and the Detroit automaker canceled plans to codevelop EVs two years after Ford took a 12% stake in the startup in 2019. Around that time, VW also announced a $2.6 billion deal with Ford for autonomous vehicles that didn’t pan out.

Stellantis

Stellantis — formed through the merger of Fiat Chrysler and French automaker PSA Groupe in January 2021 — has proven that not all mergers enacted to produce scale guarantee a profitable company. After a record profit last year, the company has struggled in 2024.
While Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has touted achieving roughly $9 billion in cost reductions following the merger, the automaker has mismanaged the U.S. market — its prime cash generator — with a lack of investment in new or updated products, historically high prices and extreme cost-cutting measures.

Carlos Tavares, chief executive officer of Stellantis NV, speaks during a news conference at the Fiat automobile manufacturing plant in Kragujevac, Serbia, on Monday, July 22, 2024. 
Oliver Bunic | Bloomberg | Getty Images

When asked by Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska about Stellantis not performing to “capital junkie” standards despite the massive merger, Tavares said the company achieved the scale needed to be more efficient but it’s still working on a product blitz and correcting mistakes in North America.
Tavares said Stellantis remains more profitable than Fiat Chrysler and PSA were on their own. He also cited impacts of “regulatory chaos,” a reference to U.S. and Europe standards for EVs and emissions.
“Stellantis is the concrete expression of the scale that you need to have to use the resources of your shareholders in a meaningful way. So, that’s what we did. FCA was too small,” Tavares said when discussing first-half results in July. “PSA was too small. Stellantis has the right scale. That’s an answer that I’m sure Sergio would recognize.”

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