In a filing to the SEC published today, it was revealed that Carvana will be laying off approximately 2,500 employees or about 12 percent of its workforce, in an effort to “better align staffing and expense levels with sales volume.” On the same day, the online used vehicle retailer also announced a $2.2 billion deal to purchase Adesa U.S..
In addition to laying off staff, the company said in the filing that it will be “transitioning operations away” from its inspection and recondition center in Euclid, Ohio, as well as from a few of its logistics hubs in other locations.
Carvana indicated that its executive team will forego their salaries for the remainder of the year in order to contribute to the severance packages that will last four weeks, plus an additional for every year the employee has been with the company. Its share prices fell five percent in the wake of the announcement, reports Automotive News.
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Separately, the company announced today that it has agreed to pay $2.2 billion for Adesa U.S., a wholesale vehicle auction unit being sold by KAR Auction Services Inc. As part of the deal, it will get 56 Adesa U.S. locations that together have 6.5 million square feet of buildings and 4,000-plus acres of land.
“This alignment with ADESA U.S. will further strengthen our foundation for growth and provide us with significant flexibility to execute our plan through a wide range of macroeconomic scenarios,” said Ernie Garcia, Carvana founder and CEO. “We aim to use this ADESA U.S. alignment to both improve the experiences of the ADESA U.S. physical auction customers and to focus on significant and sustainable efficiencies, and unit economic improvements, for Carvana to catapult back into rapid profitable growth as the industry inevitably rebounds.”
Shares in Carvana are down 83 percent so far in 2022 and are faring worse than the Nasdaq, reports MarketWatch. The company is facing new competition from automakers like GM and Ford that are entering the used car sales market with offerings like CarBravo.
The company has also come under scrutiny for its business practices. Last year it lost its license to sell vehicles in Raleigh, North Carolina, and nearly lost it in Florida after being accused of violating dealer licensing laws by not delivering titles to those states’ DMVs.