$10B in cash, lots of food, and some side-hustlin'... Sounds like a good recipe for weathering a pandemic — and Uber just flaunted it to the world, fresh out the oven. Its stock popped 38% after CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said his company has plenty of cushion to weather the crisis. First, the burnt cake:
- Uber stock has plunged 50% over the past month on locked-down cities, shuttered restaurants/bars, and overall germ fears.
- That's courtesy of a 60%-70% plummet in rides in areas most affected by the crisis — it also suspended its shared pool rides on virus-spread fears.
But Uber is primarily a tech company... While some investors equate ride-hailing with travel, and travel with a current mega-struggle bus, Uber wants the world to remember that its business is tech. It flexed its crisis-confidence by throwing out some #fancy terms:
- "Ample liquidity" — Uber's got $10B in unrestricted cash to cushion its ride-hailing woes. It says that even if rides fall by 80% this year (worst-case scenario), it would still have $4B in cold hard cash left to spare on top of a $2B credit line.
- "Multiple business lines" — That's Uber Eats (its food delivery biz), Uber Freight (its shipping app), and Uber Health (its healthcare ride-scheduling app) — all poised to succeed at a time when simple ride-sharing can't.
Flexible costs could be Uber's lifeline... Another fancy term Uber dropped: "highly variable cost structure." Uber's expenses are flexible — costs can scale when business winds down/up. Uber doesn't have many fixed costs (think: rent). That's an advantage over business like airlines and car-makers, which have massive factories and expensive machinery. Uber's "storefront" is an app — not a rent-heavy retail spot.