Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) files for capital raise, Elon Musk to acquire $10 million in shares
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) filed for an offering of common stock and convertible notes on Thursday. In a filing, the company indicated that it would raise up to $2 billion, with $650 million estimated to come in the form of new equity and the other $1.35 billion in convertible notes.
TSLA shares initially fell in pre-market trading when Tesla put out a filing indicating that it will be offering a mix of equity securities and debt. When a separate filing indicated that CEO Elon Musk planned to buy about $10 million of the company’s stock in the new offering, TSLA reversed course, trading as high as 5% on Thursday’s pre-market.
Tesla’s total equity is for 2.7 million shares of TSLA stock. Elon Musk’s $10 million purchase will give him 41,896 additional shares of the company. Tesla’s filings indicate that the offering is being underwritten by Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Societe Generale, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Wells Fargo.
As of writing, Tesla shares are trading +2.59% at $240.08 per share in Thursday’s pre-market.
Tesla has issued a press release on its recent capital raise, a copy of which could be found below.
PALO ALTO, Calif., May 02, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Tesla, Inc. today announced offerings of $650 million of common stock and $1,350 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due in 2024 in concurrent underwritten registered public offerings. In addition, Tesla has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15% of each offering. Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, will participate by purchasing $10 million of common stock.
The aggregate gross proceeds of the offerings, assuming full exercise by the underwriters of their option to purchase additional securities, would be approximately $2.3 billion before discounts and expenses. Tesla intends to use the net proceeds from the offerings to further strengthen its balance sheet, as well as for general corporate purposes.
The notes in this offering will be convertible into cash and/or shares of Tesla’s common stock at Tesla’s election. The interest rate, conversion price and other terms of the notes are to be determined. With respect to the notes, Tesla intends to enter into convertible note hedge transactions and warrant transactions to limit dilution of its common stock. In connection with establishing their initial hedge of the convertible note hedge and warrant transactions, the hedge counterparties or their affiliates expect to enter into various derivative transactions with respect to Tesla’s common stock concurrently with or shortly after the pricing of the notes, including with certain investors in the notes.
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and Citigroup are acting as lead joint book-running managers for the offering, with BofA Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank Securities, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse acting as additional book-running managers, and Societe Generale and Wells Fargo Securities acting as co-managers.
An effective registration statement relating to the securities was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 2, 2019. The offering of these securities will be made only by means of prospectus supplements and the accompanying prospectus. Copies of the preliminary prospectus supplements and the accompanying prospectus may be obtained from (i) Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Attn: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, telephone: 866-471-2526, facsimile: 212-902-9316 or email: prospectus-ny@ny.email.gs.com or (ii) Citigroup Global Markets Inc. c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, New York 11717, telephone: 800-831-9146.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. The securities being offered have not been approved or disapproved by any regulatory authority, nor has any such authority passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of the registration statement, the prospectus contained therein or the prospectus supplements.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release, including statements regarding the proposed public offerings of common stock and notes, the convertible note hedge and warrant transactions, and Tesla’s intended use for the proceeds of the offerings, are “forward-looking statements” that are subject to risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations, and as a result of certain risks and uncertainties, actual events or results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to the registration statement on Form S-3 on file with the SEC and the prospectus and prospectus supplements included or incorporated by reference therein, as well as the other documents Tesla files on a consolidated basis from time to time with the SEC, specifically Tesla’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. These documents contain and identify important factors that could cause the actual results for Tesla on a consolidated basis to differ materially from those contained in Tesla’s forward-looking statements. Tesla disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements.
Elon Musk
Tesla locks in Elon Musk’s top problem solver as it enters its most ambitious era
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla has granted Senior Vice President of Automotive Tom Zhu more than 520,000 stock options, tying a significant portion of his compensation to the company’s long-term performance.
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla secures top talent
According to a Form 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Tom Zhu received 520,021 stock options with an exercise price of $435.80 per share. Since the award will not fully vest until March 5, 2031, Zhu must remain at Tesla for more than five years to realize the award’s full benefit.
Considering that Tesla shares are currently trading at around the $445 to $450 per share level, Zhu will really only see gains in his equity award if Tesla’s stock price sees a notable rise over the years, as noted in a Sina Finance report.
Still, even at today’s prices, Zhu’s stock award is already worth over $230 million. If Tesla reaches the market cap targets set forth in Elon Musk’s 2025 CEO Performance Award, Zhu would become a billionaire from this equity award alone.
Tesla’s problem solver
Zhu joined Tesla in April 2014 and initially led the company’s Supercharger rollout in China. Later that year, he assumed the leadership of Tesla’s China business, where he played a central role in Tesla’s localization efforts, including expanding retail and service networks, and later, overseeing the development of Gigafactory Shanghai.
Zhu’s efforts helped transform China into one of Tesla’s most important markets and production hubs. In 2023, Tesla promoted Zhu to Senior Vice President of Automotive, placing him among the company’s core global executives and expanding his influence beyond China. He has since garnered a reputation as the company’s problem solver, being tapped by Elon Musk to help ramp Giga Texas’s vehicle production.
With this in mind, Tesla’s recent filing seems to suggest that the company is locking in its top talent as it enters its newest, most ambitious era to date. As could be seen in the targets of Elon Musk’s 2025 pay package, Tesla is now aiming to be the world’s largest company by market cap, and it is aiming to achieve production levels that are unheard of. Zhu’s talents would definitely be of use in this stage of the company’s growth.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) just got a price target boost from its biggest bear, Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research, who raised his expected trading level to one that is 95 percent lower than its current trading level.
Johnson pushed his Tesla price target from $19.05 to $25.28 on Wednesday, while maintaining the ‘Sell’ rating that has been present on the stock for a long time. GLJ has largely been recognized as the biggest skeptic of Elon Musk’s company, being particularly critical of the automotive side of things.
Tesla has routinely been called out by Johnson for negative delivery growth, what he calls “weakening demand,” and price cuts that have occurred in past years, all pointing to them as desperate measures to sell its cars.
Johnson has also said that Tesla is extremely overvalued and is too reliant on regulatory credits for profitability. Other analysts on the bullish side recognize Tesla as a company that is bigger than just its automotive side.
Many believe it is a leader in autonomous driving, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, who believes Tesla will have a widely successful 2026, especially if it can come through on its targets and schedules for Robotaxi and Cybercab.
Justifying the price target this week, Johnson said that the revised valuation is based on “reality rather than narrative.” Tesla has been noted by other analysts and financial experts as a stock that trades on narrative, something Johnson obviously disagrees with.
Dan Nathan, a notorious skeptic of the stock, turned bullish late last year, recognizing the company’s shares trade on “technicals and sentiment.” He said, “From a trading perspective, it looks very interesting.”
Tesla bear turns bullish for two reasons as stock continues boost
Johnson has remained very consistent with this sentiment regarding Tesla and his beliefs regarding its true valuation, and has never shied away from putting his true thoughts out there.
Tesla shares closed at $431.40 today, about 95 percent above where Johnson’s new price target lies.
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