Earnings calls, loved by some CFOs and dreaded by others, allow finance leaders and their fellow executives to verbalize their organization’s progress. Each month, CFO.com compiles interesting insights shared by CFOs during these calls for The CFO Earnings Dispatch series. These insights include statements about their company, analysis of financial data and answers to analysts’ questions.
For Feburary’s edition, we highlights CFO takes from Palantir, MicroStrategy, Eli Lilly, Wynn Resorts, Chemours, Walmart, Krispy Kreme, Beyond Meat, Anheuser-Busch InBev and Lemonade.
1. Palantir
Market cap: $197.25 billion
Date of call: Feb. 3
On Palantir’s latest earnings call, the strong relationship and differences between its CFO and CEO, who is equally passionate about his company as he is intellectually intense, were evident. When discussing how the company views partnerships, the differences between the executives seemingly embody their personalities. Though the company is likely facing major headwinds due to growth, CFO David Glazer said its initiative to invest in quality engineers will help address any new demand or direction the company may take, as more than half of its business is reliant on government contracts.
“On the investing front, [it’s] quality engineering,” Glazer said. “You can see it sort of how we set up our [compensation] programs… [the focus is] quality engineers more than the quantity. And you’ll continue to see us do that this year.”
CEO Alex Karp dismissed the idea of partnerships with other technology companies to expand the business.
“There used to be partnership meetings [that] were a complete waste of time and BS, largely so people could fill out a report that they met with us kind of thing, like high-school dating for nerds,” Karp said. “I met with them, perfect, I’m not going out with them. That was our experience with partnerships.”
2. MicroStrategy
Market cap: $71.38 billion
Date of call: Feb. 5
Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy, whose finances are led by CFO Andrew Kang, has a tremendous investment in bitcoin. In the latest earnings call, Kang detailed some of the company’s holdings as it has become the world’s first and largest bitcoin treasury company.
“We acquired 218,887 bitcoins from the beginning of the fourth quarter until now for approximately $20.5 billion at an average price of $93,600 per bitcoin,” Kang said. “As of Jan. 24, the company held a total of 471,107 Bitcoins acquired for an aggregate cost of $30.4 billion or approximately $64,511 per bitcoin.”
“The company has added bitcoin to our balance sheet in every single quarter since August 2020 across 50-plus announcements, and 100% of our bitcoin holdings remain fully unencumbered,” Kang said. “As of Feb. 2, 2025, the market value of our Bitcoin holdings was $46.1 billion, purchased at an aggregate cost of $30.4 billion and an average bitcoin purchase price of $64,511.”
3. Eli Lilly
Market cap: $873.08 billion
Date of call: Feb. 6
Eli Lilly CFO Lucas Montarce highlighted the company’s push to advertise its GLP-1 drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, as well as Alzheimer’s drug Kisunla and eczema drug Ebglyss. This success is likely isolated to just two countries — the U.S. and New Zealand — the only places in the developed world where direct-to-consumer advertising for pharmaceutical companies is legal.
“Marketing, selling and administrative expenses increased 26%, mainly driven by promotional efforts to support ongoing and future launches,” Montarce said. “This includes U.S. direct-to-consumer advertising on Zepbound and Mounjaro and U.S. launch activities for Kisunla and Ebglyss. We also increased our commercial investment outside the U.S. to support international launches of Mounjaro.”
4. Wynn Resorts
Market cap: $9.82 billion
Date of call: Feb. 13
Wynn Resorts CFO Julie Cameron-Doe highlighted the company’s strong financial position despite challenges around labor shortages in the industry. The company’s strong position is also worth noting as many of its competitors struggle, particularly in Las Vegas, as Sin City’s slowdown continues.
“Our liquidity position remains very strong, with global cash and revolver availability of $3.5 billion as of Dec. 31. This was comprised of $1.8 billion of total cash and available liquidity in Macau and $1.7 billion in the U.S.,” Cameron-Doe said. “The combination of strong performance in each of our markets globally, with our properties generating nearly $2.4 billion at 2024 adjusted property EBITDA, together with our robust cash position, creates a very healthy consolidated net leverage ratio of just over four times. Our strong free cash flow and liquidity profile allowed us to reduce leverage while returning capital to shareholders.”
5. Chemours
Market cap: $2.07 billion
Date of call: Feb. 18
Chemours, the mid-1990s DuPont spin-off widely known for manufacturing Teflon — a chemical currently being targeted by regulators and ditched en masse in kitchens across America — had CFO Shane Hostetter highlight how regulatory concerns can impact forecasts around advanced performance material production due to uncertainty regarding government regulations.
“We are excited about [having] further conversations [with regulators and/or stakeholders], but if [they go] the other way, that’s really what we were getting at as to potential regulatory pressure there,” Hostetter said. “As I think about [the] next several years in APM, we’re really committed to taking a look at just overall portfolio in line with Pathway to Thrive, and APM is certainly part of that and making sure that the product lines we’re operating are optimized from a return basis and [we’re] thinking through the next steps.”
6. Walmart
Market cap: $767.19 billion
Date of call: Feb. 20
Walmart CFO John David Rainey highlighted the success of the brand shifting its value proposition away from low prices and toward convenience.
“With respect to the sensitivity of our model to the macro environment, I hope investors think differently about Walmart because our customers and members are telling us that they do,” Rainey said. “We’re not just known for value, we’re also increasingly known for convenience.”
“Our business is performing well… but this increased relevance translates into improved financial performance for us [too]. As we grow these digital businesses like e-commerce, the incremental margins in our e-commerce business globally for us in the quarter were 11%, over twice the rate of what our overall margin is… our business outperformed on virtually every operational and financial metric in the quarter,” Rainey said.
7. Krispy Kreme
Market cap: $1.03 billion
Date of call: Feb. 25
As the company shifts from a bakery business to a hub-and-spoke model by selling its products in grocers and launching campaigns at McDonald’s, Krispy Kreme CFO Jeremiah Ashukian responded candidly to analysts asking about the expenses of the transition and its impact on EBITDA.
“We’ve begun to scale obviously to support [the delivered fresh daily campaign] expansion in the U.S., including McDonald’s with our existing in-house models to start,” Ashukian said. “In February, we moved to the contract phase and [we] remain engaged with multiple carriers to finalize [contracts]. While we go through this phase and into the rollout, we do expect some transition costs [as we] move into an outsourced model.”
“So, there is EBITDA pressure. But we are targeting EBIT neutral. However, we’re still in the negotiation phase, [though] expected costs are contemplated in our [forecasts],” Ashukian said.
8. Beyond Meat
Market cap: $210.28 million
Date of call: Feb. 26
Beyond Meat CFO Lubi Kutua spoke extensively about how price increases drive one of the company’s main key performance indicators — net revenue per pound growth — across multiple business areas. These price increases, though they show growth, only offset declining sales due to weakening demand in both consumers and food service.
“The increase in net revenue per pound was primarily driven by lower trade discounts compared to the year-ago period, as well as price increases of certain of our products, partially offset by changes in product sales mix and unfavorable changes in foreign currency exchange rates,” Kutua said.
“Breaking this down by channel, U.S. retail net revenues increased 5.7% to $33.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to $32.1 million in the year-ago period, primarily due to a 10.6% increase in net revenue per pound partially offset by a 4.5% decrease in volume of products sold,” said Kutua. “Net revenue per pound benefited from lower trade discounts, price increases of certain products, and changes in product sales mix, while the decrease in volumes sold primarily reflected soft category demand and price elasticity effects.”
9. Anheuser-Busch InBev
Market cap: $111.44 billion
Date of call: Feb. 26
As its future customer base continues to ditch alcohol in droves, Anheuser-Busch InBev CFO Fernando Tennenbaum reminded analysts the company isn’t looking to buy its way into future markets anytime soon. He reassured that its capital allocation strategies are disciplined, and organic growth is still the priority.
“It’s worth reminding [everyone] that the objective of our capital allocation policy is value creation,” Tennenbaum said. “The framework is unchanged, and we remain disciplined in our choices. So, priority number one has always been investing in the organic growth of our business. We have a very good business with no shortage of opportunities to invest.”
10. Lemonade
Market cap: $2.48 billion
Date of call: Feb. 26
As auto insurance providers continue to raise rates across the country, Lemonade and its CFO Tim Bixby continue to disrupt the market through AI-powered underwriting technology. As the company’s CEO noted in a recent letter to investors, its “relentless pursuit of automation at every stage” is still in full swing.
“Q4 brought our best-ever loss ratio, helping to drive a near doubling of gross profit in 2024,” Bixby said. “In-force premium grew 26% to $944 million, while customer count increased by 20% to 2.4 million. Premium per customer increased 5% versus the prior year to $388, driven primarily by rate increases. Annual dollar retention, or ADR, was 86%, down one percentage point since this time last year.”
