The company beat earnings and revenue estimates in its fourth quarter.įor Mr. Bush) credited the activist investor with helping him realize that a shake-up was necessary. Jonathan Bush, the company’s founder and C.E.O. The move adds a veteran corporate chieftain to oversee the fast-growing company, particularly as it seeks to prove that it’s capable of maturing.Īthenahealth had been under pressure last year from Elliott Management, which disclosed a 9.2 percent stake in the company last spring and pressed for operational changes. Immelt as its chairman, capping a monthslong search for the position. Now he is adding “chairman of a fast-growing health company” to his titles.Īthenahealth, a provider of electronic medical records software, announced Wednesday that it has hired Mr. It may be tough to keep generating cash flow in this fashion. In other words, the amounts Tesla owes its customers and suppliers went up. But the company’s balance sheet showed a nearly $500 million increase in short-term liabilities in the fourth quarter. How did Tesla pull this off? The company said the increase was achieved in part by doing a better job collecting the money it is owed and by reducing its inventory of finished vehicles.
In the fourth quarter, Tesla brought in $510 million of operating cash flow, a big turnaround from an outflow of $301 million in the prior three months. “It is important to note that while these are the levels we are focused on hitting and we have plans in place to achieve them, our prior experience on the Model 3 ramp has demonstrated the difficulty of accurately forecasting specific production rates at specific points in time.”Ĭash flow may not be as impressive as it looked. But Tesla did not sound overly confident about achieving its Model 3 milestones. The company had pushed back when it would hit this 5,000 vehicle target last month. The company said it was on track to produce 5,000 Model 3s by the middle of 2018. The company did not specify how negative the gross margin on the Model 3 was. As a result, the gross margin on the Model 3 was negative and is expected to remain so in the first quarter of 2018, Tesla said. Many of the costs associated with the Model 3 are being booked in the income statement but difficulties in producing the car mean sales are low. The culprit? The Model 3, Tesla’s first mass-market car. Tesla’s gross margin in its automotive business, which reveals the profitability of actually producing its cars, came in at 13.8 percent, below the “about 15 percent” that Tesla itself forecast when it reported third-quarter results. But a crucial measure of profitability disappointed.