CoreWeave tends to rise and fall with the fortunes of the artificial-intelligence trade. But the stock was being punished on Thursday over its latest fund-raising plans even as the company celebrated demand for its AI computing services.
CoreWeave shares were down 5.3% at $78.92 in morning trading Thursday, out of step with a 1.6% gain for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index.
The cause for the drop was CoreWeave's announcement that it would offer $3 billion of convertible debt and launch a program to issue and sell up to 35 million class A common shares.
Shareholders are used to debt announcements from CoreWeave, which needs to make big capital expenditures in order to set up data centers for additional AI computing capacity.
The latest offer is for convertible senior notes due in 2033 in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers, with an option for initial purchasers to buy up to an additional $500 million in notes. The pricing is yet to be determined.
The at-the-market share offering program provides some equity diversification alongside the debt financing. If exercised in full, it would raise around $2.76 billion at Thursday morning's trading price.
"The ATM program is being established to provide ongoing financing flexibility and to support CoreWeave's objective of migrating its enterprise credit profile toward investment grade," the company said in a statement. "CoreWeave has no obligation to sell any shares under the ATM program."
CoreWeave also looked to offer some reassurance about its business alongside the financing announcements. It said strong demand for AI computing power is driving higher pricing, with recent short-term contracts of approximately three to six months reaching about $40 million per megawatt on an annualized basis.
CoreWeave noted that it has expanded its total contracted power capacity to roughly 4.2 gigawatts as of Aug. 11, up from 3.7 gigawatts at the end of the second quarter.
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