What happened
Shares of Fastly (FSLY +1.74%) rose by as much as 4.2% Wednesday before settling down to a 2.6% loss on the day. After market hours, it suffered an even steeper decline, plunging by over 17%.
So what
Fastly announced that CFO Adriel Lares is vacating his position. He will continue leading the company's finance team until a successor is appointed, after which he'll stay on during a transition period. The company said that it is conducting a search for Lares' replacement, and has hired an unnamed executive search firm to aid in the hunt.
Image source: Getty Images.
As for the quarterly results, published after market hours, the first quarter saw the tech company lift its total revenue by 35% on a year-over-year basis to almost $85 million. But its adjusted net loss deepened to $14 million ($0.12 per share), from the first-quarter 2020 shortfall of $6 million.
The revenue improvement was due to higher customer counts and a modest improvement in client spending. Profitability was hurt by higher costs in sales/marketing and research and development.
Now what
While no investor likes when a company executive steps down, Lares' transition appears to be smooth, untroubled, and peaceful.
Fastly's first quarter is more of a concern, as the company missed the average analyst estimates on both the top and bottom lines. This compounds a wider investor trend of moving away from certain tech stocks in favor of titles seen as having more potential to gain from our emergence from the pandemic.
