TrueCar Loses Its CEO And Cuts Nearly A Quarter Of Its Staff | The Morning Shift

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TrueCar’s CEO is out of the building and the company has laid off 102 employees, amounting to 24 percent of its staff, it announced Wednesday. This comes after mounting losses that saw TrueCar fall short $19.6 million in the first quarter of this year, following $18.1 million in the preceding quarter and $12.4 million in early 2022.

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From Automotive News:

Barbara Carbone, TrueCar’s incoming board chair, said in a statement that restructuring would help the company better align its costs with revenue “and is designed to make TrueCar a nimbler, more efficient company.” […]

The company said the job cuts and a realignment of its leadership structure will slash employment expenses by more than $20 million annually, excluding stock-based compensation.

TrueCar said it will incur $7 million in restructuring charges, excluding stock-based compensation, in the second and third quarters. Those expenses include one-time employee benefits and severance payments. Most of the plan will be complete by the third quarter, according to a regulatory filing.

The company said it expects to break even or have positive adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in the fourth quarter.

Now former-CEO Mike Darrow leaves after six years at the vehicle listings firm, which has struggled to convert service and site traffic into dealer sales. A new endeavor launched in April, TrueCar Wholesale Solutions, was specifically focused to maximize opportunity in the tight and increasingly competitive secondhand market. But it’s still much too early for dividends to pay out, if they ever will.

This is the latest chapter in what’s been a challenging existence for TrueCar, a company that’s always been on the outs with the dealers it so desperately needs support from. But hey — at least its shares were up more than 12 percent after the announcement, so it would seem investors feel these measures have been long overdue.