ChargePoint Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CHPT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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And if you look at the announcement we just made with USPS, for example, you’re starting to see the cloud break, so to speak, with respect to a very large fleet that’s positioned across the United States start to get commitments from vehicle manufacturers that they’re going to see those vehicles come in earnest. So as that — as things like that start to happen, I think you’re going to see a much more balanced expand versus land mix, and it should result in an acceleration of revenue even within our customer base. .

Operator: Next will hear from Kashy Harrison, Piper Sandler.

Kashy Harrison: So just the first one for me. So the liquidity position improved a few million of $400 million in cash and short-term investments, $400 million. You mentioned the $50 million ATM offering. Could you speak to the driver behind the utilization of the ATM in December, just given that you already had a pretty strong liquidity position before that? And then maybe just talk about how we should be thinking about like strategically the strategy behind the ATM in the future?

Rex Jackson : Sure. So as I mentioned, yes, we definitely capped the ATM in December for $50 million. One of the things that is paramount for this company is we have a strong balance sheet, and we want to keep it that way. And when you map that to what it’s been, and we hope continues to be a very strong growth rate. We need to be able to support the business. The thing that I would focus you on as we’ve talked about or path to profitability, the burn that you see, call it, adjusted EBITDA, call it, whatever you want to call it, that’s going to decline meaningfully over time over the next year or two because getting to zero across the over something that’s super important. So I think that the need to address that will decline over time as those metrics get better — but the bottom line is we just need to maintain a strong balance sheet and relative — I think we have the best in the industry, and we need to stay there.

And then bottom line from a — would we use it, again, it’s opportunistic. It’s based on price and circumstances and timing and everything else. So we’re just going to keep an eye on it.

Kashy Harrison: Okay. Fair enough. And then just my follow-up question. As you pointed out, I think both of you pointed out in the prepared remarks, you effectively held the non-GAAP OpEx flat all year roughly $80 million and the — as a percentage of sales, down to 50% from 100% earlier in the year. Can you talk about your operating expense strategy for 2020 — calendar ’23 as well? Should we expect flattish OpEx again? Or should we expect a little bit of an uplift as the business is growing and there’s also wage inflation. So just some thoughts on OpEx would be great.

Rex Jackson : Yes. You sort of answered your own question. So yes, there will be an uptick in Q1. The combination of an uptick in Q1 relative to Q4. The fact is that we’re seasonally lower on revenue, it’s going to make our operating expense leverage them were in the wrong way for the first time in three or four quarters. But the drivers are exactly what you just said. It’s — we’ve got — our annual rate cycle is now and then we’ll have the full impact in Q1 of new hires in Q4. So those are the main components that will drive it up a bit. But then what you’ll see there’s sort of this uptick in and it doesn’t keep doing that Q2, Q3, Q4 is a very — our view currently is a very, very modest series of increases throughout the year. So take an uptick in Q1 and slowly higher for the rest of the year.

Operator: We will now hear from David Kelley, Jefferies.

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