Plug Power CFO sees taking goodwill impairment of up to $250M

On the company’s 2024 Business Update Call earlier, Plug Power CFO Paul Middleton stated: “The last comment I would make is that given the softening in the capital markets and our stock price, it has led us to do a more in-depth evaluation of the goodwill we have on our balance sheet. Given the market dynamics, it appears likely we will take an impairment charge for the goodwill, which could be an amount of up to $250M. This would be a noncash charge and the final determination will be made as we get closer to the end of February with our filing. Turning our focus to ’24. We know we must significantly improve margins and cash flow, and we see this as an opportunity to reset given ongoing economic and market conditions. Our near-term strategies are focused primarily on cash and margin enhancement. We are actively pursuing significant price increases across all our offerings, including equipment, service and fuel. This is a paradigm shift as we have historically not raised prices even during inflationary times when market rates have increased. We’ve implemented a hiring freeze and will use attrition to naturally lower payroll cost. We’ve grown the team a lot over the last few years, and we now need to optimize the leverage of the capabilities we’ve built and drive increased collaboration and precision of focus.”