Tesla announced the date for its fourth quarter and full year 2016 financial results which will take place on Wednesday, February 22, 2017. A full webcast will be provided. We’ve embedded a copy of Tesla’s announcement, below.
The new date for Tesla’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2016 Financial Results comes after originally stating that the report would be made available on February 8, and subsequently cancelling that announcement.
In the release Tesla states that “at that time [after market close on 2/22/2017], Tesla will issue a brief advisory containing a link to the Q4 and full year 2016 Update Letter, which will be available on the Tesla IR website. Tesla management will hold a live question and answer webcast that day at 2:30pm Pacific Time (5:30pm Eastern Time) to discuss the Company’s financial and business results and outlook.”
Moving a date for a Quarterly report by as much as 14 days is quite unusual, but it may be the result of letters from the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) to several companies, including Tesla, that were mailed out last December where the SEC mandated new reporting guidelines in an attempt to slow the proliferation of non-GAAP numbers and rein in the worst offenders.
As originally reported by By Ciara Linnane, Tomi Kilgore, and Francine McKenna of MarketWatch in the article titled “SEC wants earnings to comply with its rules and it won’t take no for an answer“, “Tesla was firmly taken to task by the SEC over what it called “individually tailored” numbers, which are strictly forbidden. In fact it took four letters from the SEC, three from Tesla’s lawyers, five amendments to a filing and at least one conference call before the regulator was satisfied.”
The 14 days delay could be accounted to the work needed to provide the Full Year 2016 Financial results in adherence with SEC demands, for the first time in the history of Tesla. One additional hurdle and extra effort to produce the 2016 yearly results may also be accounted to the merger with SolarCity.
[pdf-embedder url=”http://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/TSLA_News_2017_2_2_General_Releases.pdf”]