Irenic Sends Letter to Snap Inc. Co-Founder and CEO Evan Spiegel and Issues Presentation Outlining Actionable Steps to Unlock Value
Details Path to Value Creation Including Fully Monetizing the AI Opportunity, Improving Cost Structure, Increasing Capital Returns to Shareholders, and Enhancing Corporate Governance
Believes Company Could Be Worth At Least
Encourages Shareholders to Visit SaveSnapNow.com to View and Download Presentation
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We are writing to you on behalf of
We own an economic interest in ~2.5% of Snap’s Class A shares.1
We bought Snap because we think the social network you built is an extraordinarily valuable asset – whose strategic value is only increasing. There are very few scaled social networks. In
We also bought Snap because we admire you as a founder and an entrepreneur. Even if you were to do nothing else, what you have already accomplished – building one of the fastest social networks to reach 100 million users, approaching 1 billion MAUs, developing Lens and Snapchat+ – puts you in the front rank of great entrepreneurs.
But, we think you have a second act.
IT’S TIME, PAST TIME, TO BUILD A GREAT COMPANY, NOT JUST GREAT PRODUCTS
We are taking the unusual step of writing you a public letter because Snap isn’t a typical public company. Shareholders like us do not vote for Snap directors and we can’t tell you what to do. This is your company. We can only attempt to persuade you to do the right things for your shareholder-partners.
Attached to this letter is a presentation. It’s titled Snap Back to Reality: Save Snap Now – which can also be found at SaveSnapNow.com. In it we outline a series of recommendations to, well, save Snap.
Does Snap – the company – need saving? We think it does.
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A dollar invested in Snap at IPO is worth
23 cents today.2
- Snap has underperformed Meta and the Nasdaq by 364 and 444 percentage points, respectively, since its IPO.
- Since Meta announced its “Year of Efficiency” in November of 2022, Meta has outperformed Snap by 477 percentage points.
- Snap trades at ~1.2x revenue. Meta trades at 5.2x revenue.3
More than that, in simplest terms, it seems to us that it is more than passing strange that Snap – with nearly 1 billion MAUs, reaching 75% of users aged 13-34 globally, with 350 million of those users engaging with AR tools, with users opening the app 40 times a day, with 25 million paying subscribers approaching
Snap should be worth a lot more than
In our presentation, we outline a path to
Even those numbers,
But, Snap won’t get there until meaningful changes are made. Here’s how we think you should Save Snap Now:
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Spin or Shut Specs
– Snap has spent more than
$3.5 billion on Specs and is spending ~$500mm in cash annually. At this point, if Specs cannot be funded on its own, it is time to shut it down.
- Rationalize the Cost Structure – Snap had ~3,000 employees before COVID. It has over 5,200 today. Like many of your peers, you over-hired. Unlike your peers, you haven’t course corrected. Meta’s “Year of Efficiency” led to a reduction of ~25% of the workforce and increased EBITDA margins by nearly 20 percentage points. Block recently announced a 40% headcount reduction by adopting AI to drive efficiencies.
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Align Employee Incentives – Snap’s use of stock to compensate employees is too substantial and even more costly when you consider how undervalued Snap shares are. The compensation is also poorly structured and Snap should move from a purely time-based approach to 2/3 performance vested with
$10 and$15 share price targets.
- Focus on using AI to Improve Ad Monetization – Specs and similar efforts are a distraction from Snap’s core business – selling ads and subscriptions. Facebook has seen dramatic improvements in revenue per daily active user by using AI/ML tools to improve ad targeting. AppLovin has seen the same dramatic growth by accelerating its adoption of AI/ML tools which has significantly improved return on advertising spend for its customers. Unlike Specs, the ROI on R&D dollars spent improving Snap’s advertising technology stack will be positive and substantial.
- Monetize the Latent AI Opportunity – MyAI has real adoption, but it has the wrong monetization partners in Microsoft and Perplexity. Beyond that there is an enormous latent opportunity in Snap’s video and image datasets.
- Take Advantage of Your Discounted Valuation – If Snap starts generating substantially higher cash EBITDA, it should use a good portion of that to invest in the business and to buy back its discounted stock. If we’re right that Snap is substantially undervalued, buying back stock at these levels (or even well above them) is massively accretive.
- Improve Corporate Governance – Give Class A shareholders 1 vote per share. This does not mean giving up control. With 1 vote per share, public shareholders would have just 36% of the vote – in-line with Meta and Alphabet. Your control would be undiminished, but it would unlock inclusion in certain indices to which Snap is currently barred and improve your cost of capital.
It’s Time to Act
Snap should not continue doing what it has been doing. It’s not working. And we’re not telling you anything you don’t know already. In fact, almost eight months ago, you said Snap was at a “Crucible Moment.”
While our share price performance has not yet reflected the full potential of our business, we have a clear path forward. We must reaccelerate revenue growth, improve gross margins, and grow our community and engagement to expand our long-term potential. Achieving net income profitability would also help offset the dilution risk of stock-based compensation and establish a stronger foundation under our share price.6
Everything you wrote then is still right. But the pace of action, the speed of execution, and the relentlessness required are simply lacking.
As a student of technology history, you know better than most that some of the most impressive stories in technology aren’t the origin stories, but the second acts.
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Warmly,
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E-Fei Wang |
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Co-Founder, |
Co-Founder, |
Managing Director |
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Chief Investment Officer |
Director of Research |
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About Irenic
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_________________________________ 1 Includes common stock, cash settled swaps, and derivative instruments.
2 All pricing data as of close of business
3 Bloomberg as of close of business
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5 Not that you have any intention of selling, but, we think if you did, we suspect the interest in Snap would be substantial. As we recently saw with Warner Brothers Discovery, the prices strategic buyers are willing to pay for “n of 1” assets – and Snap is an “n of 1” asset – can blow away even the most aggressive of expectations.
6 14 Years at |
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260331059373/en/
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