Robinhood Markets Inc is slashing practically 1 / 4 of its workers as a pandemic buying and selling growth has slumped.
The app-based brokerage dismissed 23 p.c of its workers because it posted a 44 p.c decline in income on slumping buying and selling exercise, in an earnings announcement on Tuesday that got here a day sooner than scheduled and beat analyst expectations.
The Menlo Park, California-based brokerage posted web income for the second quarter ended June 30 of $318m as income from fairness, choices and crypto buying and selling greater than halved, in contrast with $565m a yr earlier, in keeping with a submitting with the US Securities and Alternate Fee.
The corporate mentioned it will begin one other spherical of layoffs affecting 780 staff, on high of the 9 p.c of full-time workers laid off earlier this yr. It is going to additionally change its organisational construction to drive better price self-discipline.
Robinhood’s complete working bills for the second quarter rose 22 p.c on the identical interval final yr. The reorganisation will price the agency between $30m to $40m, Robinhood mentioned.
The corporate posted a web lack of $295m. Stripping out the restructuring prices, Robinhood reported a lack of 32 cents per share versus analyst estimates of a lack of 37 cents per share, in keeping with Refinitiv IBES information.
It was initially scheduled to report earnings on August 3, however launched them a day early after publishing a weblog put up concerning the job cuts and reorganisation.
Robinhood’s shares have been down practically 1 p.c at $9.15 in after-hours buying and selling.
Robinhood’s easy-to-use interface made it successful amongst younger buyers buying and selling from residence on cryptocurrencies and shares corresponding to GameStop Corp through the COVID-19 pandemic.
However its buyer base has been spooked by decades-high inflation and rising rates of interest, which have sucked liquidity out of worldwide markets and despatched cryptocurrencies slumping.
Robinhood is one in every of many fintech upstarts which have began slashing jobs forward of an anticipated recession, together with crypto trade Coinbase International Inc, buy-now-pay-later firm Klarna and NFT platform OpenSea, whereas a handful of crypto firms together with Celsius Community and Voyager Digital collapsed amid the broader crypto crash.
Robinhood Chief Govt Officer Vlad Tenev mentioned in a weblog put up on Tuesday that workers cuts earlier this yr had not gone far sufficient.
“As CEO, I authorized and took accountability for our bold staffing trajectory – that is on me,” Tenev mentioned.
Tenev, who based the corporate in 2013 with Stanford College roommate Baiju Bhatt, informed staff they’d obtain a Slack message about their standing. Those that are dropping their jobs shall be allowed to stick with the agency till October 1.
Transaction-based revenues throughout Robinhood’s three principal enterprise strains of choices, equities and cryptocurrencies fell 55 p.c, with crypto transaction income, which had buffered the corporate’s outcomes final yr, falling 75 p.c year-on-year.
Robinhood’s month-to-month energetic customers additionally appeared to fall by roughly a 3rd, at 14 million for June 2022 in contrast with 21.3 million within the second quarter of 2021.
Fintech shares bore the brunt of a broader market decline as a risk-off setting coupled with greater funding prices and sluggish e-commerce progress led to merchants pull again from high-growth tech up to now this yr.
Shares of Robinhood, which have been bought at $38 a share in its preliminary public providing final yr, have been additionally caught within the crosshairs of the crypto meltdown and have shed practically 88 p.c.