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Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

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Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#7

Probably just cutting the standard big-corp fat. If I'm correct their financial results are great, in many areas even improving

It's much worse than that unfortunately.

Pre-tax income 2013: $310m on $2.3b in sales

Pre-tax income 2014: $279m on $2.26b in sales

Pre-tax income 2015: $83m on $2.5b in sales

Pre-tax income 2016: -$20m on $2.46b in sales

Pre-tax income last four quarters: -$544m on $1.95b in sales

Net income for 2013 was $247m, for 2014 it was $228m, for 2015 it was $81m. For the last eight quarters, it's nearly a negative billion dollars.

Net tangible assets 2015: $676 million

Net tangible assets 3Q17: -$1.3 billion

Their business is in trouble.

To make matters worse, they've got a $24 billion market cap. When times were good in 2013, they'd have been sporting a near 100 PE ratio with that market cap. Today it's particularly crazy, given they've had net negative growth over the last five years and they're losing a lot of money.

Fair value in my opinion is closer to 70% lower than what they're trading for right now. That's assuming 30 times earnings on getting back to $230m +/- in net income. In more normal times that 30 PE would be very rich for a zero growth company. A more skeptical look at them, would be they're worth 85% to 90% less than what they're trading for today, if their business continues to contract or remains weak and they struggle to get back to something more like $80m to $100m in net income.

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#8

Probably just cutting the standard big-corp fat. If I'm correct their financial results are great, in many areas even improving

It's much worse than that unfortunately. Pre-tax income 2013: $310m on $2.3b in sales Pre-tax income 2014: $279m on $2.26b in sales Pre-tax income 2015: $83m on $2.5b in sales Pre-tax income 2016: -$20m on $2.46b in sales Pre-tax income last four quarters: -$544m on $1.95b in sales Net income for 2013 was $247m, for 2014 it was $228m, for 2015 it was $81m. For the last eight quarters, it's nearly a negative billion d…

How do they manage such abysmal numbers after essentially monopolizing the CAD software market?

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#10
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much worse than that unfortunately. Pre-tax income 2013: $310m on $2.3b in sales Pre-tax income 2014: $279m on $2.26b in sales Pre-tax income 2015: $83m on $2.5b in sales Pre-tax income 2016: -$20m on $2.46b in sales Pre-tax income last four quarters: -$544m on $1.95b in sales Net income for 2013 was $247m, for 2014 it was $228m, for 2015 it was $81m. For the last eight quarters, it's nearly a negative billion d…

How do they manage such abysmal numbers after essentially monopolizing the CAD software market?

Looking at where their problems are on profitability.

R&D costs climbed by nearly $200 million versus five years ago (when their sales were higher than they are today). That increase is equivalent to ten percent of their sales now. By itself, that expense gain is nearly enough to wipe out their old decent profit numbers.

"Other" SG&A expenses climbed by nearly $200 million as well.

They added around 1,700 to 2,000 employees since the beginning of 2013. Going from ~7,300 to 9,000+. That's probably more than a $200 million total annual cost addition. Then contract sales by $400 or $500 million from those days, and you get a big net financial crush.

Simply put, they bet on growth showing up, which has never materialized. To put it into context, their sales for fiscal 2007 were $1.84 billion (versus $1.95 billion the last four quarters; so realistically zero growth for a decade (!)).

To throw some more onto the fire, they spent over a billion dollars buying back stock over the last 10-12 years or so ($447 million in 2006 alone). As with companies like IBM, that money obviously should have gone to improving the actual business rather than financial maneuvers (trying to fake EPS growth).

Worse yet, as of recently they were still at the faking EPS game (from a year ago):

"Autodesk, Inc. today announced a program to repurchase up to 30 million shares of the company's common stock"

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160919005222/en/Auto...

So here's a company, bleeding red ink, whose balance sheet is badly eroding, sales are falling, and the people running the business are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy back massively over-inflated shares.

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