CVNA Adesa auction acquisition

Was curious to your thoughts to the recent rapid movements. Seems to me that it’s now trading like a meme stock. I’d think that there was some major shorts taking profit as the average short price was somewhere around 130 when this dipped into the 20s. Really at that point there is not much to hold onto if you were short up there. Not much more upside left after big gains.

Has provided nice put entry’s after 20 percent up rips back to negative. Seems AH bounce today was in regards to 8-k about their new investor deck

Couple of things I noticed when I read through this their GPU (gross per unit ) are lofty like above the National auto dealers association averages even in current times.

Secondly they noted that they expect a drop for remaining quarters. And essentially have already started focusing on Q1 of 2023. IMO the automotive industry is the ripest it’s gonna be right now. Essentially now is the time to capitalize if ever.

Reading through the deck seemed to me like a lot of hope so and could be. In the short term though I’ll continue to look for good put entry’s. Because every time it seems to get a bounce almost inevitable fades back down.

Thanks for sharing, @jjcox82! This looks like the product of a recent graduate from a Tier-2 business school who got 15 mins with one of the Garcias as they were waiting to take their private jet to Cancun, and then put some numbers together based on that, that they thought the other Garcia would want to see.

They actually released an Intro to CVNA in April that has the following chart. They hope to reduce both marketing and SG&A to a third or even a quarter to where they are now (slide 21). Unless there is some fundamental change in how they do customer acquisition or in their distribution channels, it is almost inconceivable how they will do this in the next few years.

This May presentation is probably an attempt to explain how they would do it

For starters, when one has to define their own accounting metrics, you know something’s up (slides 11 and 12). E.g. they take out capex and interest from FCF to come to “core” FCF. If capex is truly a one-time item, then sure, we could consider this alternative view. (It’s not - slide 13) But interest? That 10.25% coupon ain’t going anywhere. And it’s ~$300M too. :grin:

In Slide 21, they show where the SG&A cuts are coming from. Sure, they can fire people, like they did, to bring comp down. And they can reduce ad spend. However, that will affect revenue - they have been buying growth so far, and it doesn’t seem like they are a word-of-mouth stage yet.

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That big, fat “Other” costs “include all other selling, general and administrative expenses such as IT expenses, corporate occupancy, professional services and insurance, limited warranty, and title and registration.” (Source) Unclear how they’ll reduce it by a third just like that.

A lot of this is based on anticipated synergies from the ADESA acquisition. (Starting slide 41.) If the company had a history of executing well, I would be willing to entertain that this could happen. But given what we know, this feels unlikely to pan out this way.

Final point - most of this is not consistent with recent figures - that GPU drop…:

And the stuff they shared in their Q1 shareholder letter:

If anything, it seems that they recognize market headwinds, yet built up inventory at even higher levels and are counting on a bunch of things improving at the same time to save their behind.

Nothing in this made me feel any better, and makes this seem like an even bigger short.

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@The_Ni appreciate you breaking that down your confirmation was my thoughts exactly. Appreciate you putting it so elegantly though.

Truly feel like this a Ponzi scheme even Bernie Madoff would be proud of. Really feel like they know a bankruptcy is incoming. However they are just essentially biding time til it has to be done. Their recent endeavor to invest for the Adesa purchase has only lost them roughly 40 per share they bought at 80.

Almost seems like the blocks are shaking on this and could collapse at any moment.

Apparciate your feedback as always and diving into that!

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Illinois is awful to deal with however it is one of the most populous states in the US.

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FWIW, their FCF definition seems pretty textbook, quite common to subtract capex and interest from EBITDA to get a proxy for cash flows.

But yes the biggest question is probably their ability to achieve some of the targets they’ve set for themselves like boosting gross margin and cutting SG&A when the past track record has shown they have difficulty trying to do so

Meanwhile, bond markets seem to be pricing in some impairment of credit even for the newly issued bonds

https://twitter.com/blue_chip1/status/1525953480522731521

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I meant to drop this here earlier but when I went to discord to search for this thread somebody had just asked why CVNA was pumping and I forgot…
https://www.mystateline.com/news/business/carvana-loses-license-to-operate-in-illinois/

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Thanks for sharing! Multiple states have open cases against these guys for license and title issues. I don’t wholly know if it’s simply case of not having right employees or not knowing what they are doing as it’s very complex process issuing license and title in 50 states. As each stands on their own with different requirements.

However Illinois is a big consumer segment so this could be a moderately substantial loss in short term. And usually other states follow suit with this type of thing. Just more bad news or fuel to the fire.

Volume is down on CVNA and really kind of moves with market. And big pops have been essentially followed with big drops. Until something gives positive or negative will likely continue to do so.

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https://twitter.com/Integrity4mkts/status/1529791205646774272

Haven’t really reviewed any of this in great detail but been thinking of a renewed CVNA short after a bounce up…

Also worthwhile reading the CVNA bull case from some of the funds that have positions, although again probably assumes quite some perfect execution going forward. Just sharing these in case anyone is interested to read
https://www.sagapartners.com/post/saga-partners-investor-letter-q1-2022

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Agreed. It seems that the recent funding is being perceived as bullish by some, as seen in the price action. Was up 16% yesterday. So have stopped shorting it for the time being. Though I expect it should suffer again around the next earnings which is early August.

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Thanks for sharing I actually picked up 7 June 3rd 30p today with its morning run. Seemed to have bucked market last half of day. Had a pretty big bounce last few days and 1/3 of its average volume today. Will unload these if it’s gets it’s morning 5 percent drop as usually does.

Pretty sure this was for no reason the only ticker in the market that doesn’t rent movies out of a kiosk that was green for the week up 19 percent so grabbed a few 23p for June 24th.

Read couple interesting articles in regards to CVNA and some of their titling turmoil mentioned above. Thought I’d link them

They are finally going to post some kind of financials in august and I’d expect it to be nothing different as a company pissing away money hand over fist. Second article is interesting discussing the fact that they have a negative p/e for years now. I’m going to probably look at taking some late august or September 15p. As I think if next ER is brutal they are on the verge of being no more. They couldn’t cut a profit in the strongest times in years in auto sector I don’t see it happening with tightening demand and rising rates. Not to mention paying 10 percent on their junk bond loans.

Looks like we missed a very nice opportunity to short it when it went back up to $30 again :grin:

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I’ve traded a few put flips on it’s days it bounces 10 percent for no reason I am assuming some short profit taking since nothing has changed the previous thesis… However I think it could bounce some with general market movements. And that’s exactly what I hope happens.

We have been on this since 130 range. And feel like if they have a bad ER since I believe they skipped a quartered we could have a BBBY situation at play. Riddled with debt and a slowing sector retail in general could be the demise of the Garcias coupled with their inherent history of losing Money and fraudulent businesses prior. Layoffs and no exec salaries Garcias personal cash flow in for stock buybacks. If they don’t have some really solid numbers which I highly doubt. This one has nothing but negative sentiment. Id think we are on fhe verge of permanent demise. Definitely will continue to keep it on the radar for its upward trend to get good entry’s on its inevitable fall.

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CVNA had a 20 percent day today. It has had some good days a few times in recent weeks. If look at June 17th to June 23rd it bounced off of the 21 level as it did to start today. Several tickers with some decent SI percentages seemed to have decent runs today. Looks like shorts are in CVNA at around 20 so currently under water after the morning 10 percent run could have been some profit taking as it had plummeted from the 30 range Ni mentioned above. Could have had some afternoon exiting for smaller short sellers.

I took the opportunity to enter some 15p for august 19th. Most like will exit these on premiums as IV is already moderately jacked and has some OI already. I also took a few 23p for this Friday expire one because I forgot we only had four days and probably wouldn’t have done that. But also took them when it was already up 10 percent at 23.50 to 24 range and thought there would be some pull back. There wasn’t and proceeeded to go another 10 percent. I did average down some and expect to be fine there. If it continues to run I’ll look for some January 2023 put entry’s as nothing has changed on the thesis of expecting more cash to be burnt in this quarter. They will also report their first numbers from the Adesa acquisition which is relevant to how this thread started I’d expect it to be further drain on their cash flow or more losses added to their books. Notably because they are paying 10 percent on the bonds they needed to raise the funds for the purchase.

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Filled on Dec 15p today. Going to be really cautious here 8/6 is their first earnings in a long time. The SI has continued to grow so this could go 1 of 2 ways. The shorts average date is June 21 meaning they could be in the know and currently under water a little but with 41 percent SI and a hefty DTC of this gets any kind of retail sentiment with actually pretty good squeeze numbers and some semblance of positive news it could turn other direction fast and cause shorts to be majorly under water if there is positive news I’ll look to play the other direction in hopes of a squeeze upward and covering

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I am not familiar with SEC regulatory policies however I do tend to check on CVNA SEC filings for anything of note. I noticed today that on July 6th and 7th there were several filings for disposal of shares by nearly every senior management official. CFO CEO etc. as follows below.








This was 9 total filings. Now the question is was this just coincidence I’d lean towards not as their 2 quarter reporting is due on 8/4 just over 30 days after these transaction. The CEO went back for a second time just before rhe 30 day mark. I don’t know if there is a required amount of time before financial filings they have to sell but I’d say this is looking like they wanted an out before possible continued downward movement. It’s worth noting that many sold very little in regards to their total amount of shares. Also most of their execs have forgone their 22 salaries so this may be their means of income. But over the last year there has been multiple instances of insider selling and usually precedes a drop in share price.

Second point @The_Ni shared on tf the chart below.

To this point the used car market has stayed relatively level in regards to valuation. CVNA as of right now features over 59000 cars on their site. If we extrapolate that but the 17 point drop from January of this year to last reported may valuations. This could hit CVNA hard. Not a huge drop by when calculated against their mass amount of inventory and already struggling cash flow this could be disasterous. Pair this with the fact that chart shows average used car values. Everyone on earth knows CVNA pays well over market for their inventory. Again screams losses and cash flow issues. All the while paying 10 percent on their junk bonds to Apollo.

I’m sitting on a few 15p for December and end of august.

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Just to correct this. The final filing on July 7th was Garcia relinquishing 1700+ shares to delve out as part of employee incentive package released in 2/22. Leads me to believe the selling in preceding days was execs capitalizing on some gains on their previous held shares knowing they were about to receive some additional compensation. All sold at 21.87 per share.

Ultimately this is extremely bearish on long termoutlook for company when it’s currently sitting near its all time low to dump a few hundred shares to get some kind of value out of them. Knowing you are about to get some more. Most would think if after the massive drop this ticker has had that it had no where to go but up. Yet sell right before a major catalyst to the future of the corporation. This includes sales by the CFO which is notoriously not good.

More bad news and expected revenue loss.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/carvana-share-pricedown-95-hits-another-roadblock-11658138886

Just found this as well. This is likely a sign that they are either not procuring titles promptly. As in paying of their floorplan with whomever they use to finance their inventory which is a bad sign the road to complete collapse starts when they fall out of trust with floorplan. When this happens the floorplan lender literally shows up at the lots with car haulers and takes every car away that is floored with them.

Or they are incredibly sloppy and possibly under staffed with their recent layoffs to properly execute titles in a rapid fashion. This is their second license suspension in Illinois this year.

https://abc7chicago.com/carvana-cars-illinois-suspension-il-secretary-of-state/12061492/?ex_cid=TA_WLS_FB&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2grklA86MMJy5__TWoOpG1DgZCuR9mAH8_xCHuQa8EeGVGqLDF5gpLk2I#l5t1w1n97h8l8mriiob

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