Peloton’s New CEO Helps Shares Spike 30%... Here’s Why This Apple Alum Might Just Save The Brand

Alright, now that I’ve finally shaken off my Halloween candy coma from eating 15 snickers (thanks kids) and watched a half of my Tennessee Titans suck at all three phases of football, let’s get into Peloton (the company who experienced a “turn for the worst” so bad that it’s former CEO lost a billion dollars and now sells rugs for a living). 

Well, they just pulled off a major PR win. Shares surged nearly 30% after they announced that Peter Stern, a former Apple exec, is stepping in as the new CEO. And honestly? The diehard Peloton fans are loving it, like it’s their favorite post-ride smoothie.

It’s important to note that Stern isn’t just some tech bro with a LinkedIn page full of buzzwords. He’s a co-founder of Apple Fitness+, which makes him the kind of guy Peloton fans already have on speed dial for tech support. Before his stint at Ford (where he led their digital services and probably turned dashboards into mini Apple stores), Stern also had his fingerprints on Apple TV, iCloud, and Apple News+—basically, if it’s an Apple product you pay for monthly, Stern had a hand in it.

Jay Hoag, Peloton’s chairperson, gushed like my son when he finishes his vegetables at dinner, saying, “Peter is a seasoned strategist with a track record of driving sustainable growth through innovation.” Translation: This guy knows how to bundle tech, content, and services in a way that makes people throw their wallets at him.

Why did the market suddenly look at Peloton, which has been sweating through a post-pandemic slump like a dad in hot yoga, and decide to give it a standing ovation? Well, the numbers don’t lie, even if they sometimes fib a little.

Peloton recently reported a net loss of $900,000 for the first fiscal quarter ending September 30th (effectively zero cents per share). But before you shake your head, it’s actually not bad when you consider the same time last year they were down a soul-crushing $159.3 million (or 44 cents per share). Sales slipped a bit, hitting $586 million compared to $596 million last year, but hey, it still beat expectations. And as your workout bro always says, “It’s progress, not perfection.”

Then there’s Peloton’s operating expenses, which are down 30% year over year. The result? A tidy $116 million in adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) and about $11 million in free cash flow.

Even with this unexpected burst of optimism, the road isn’t exactly Tour de France smooth. Peloton is rolling into the holiday season (a time when it usually coasts downhill to precious revenue) but it’s predicting less-than-festive numbers. It expects revenues between $640 million and $660 million, below analysts’ $671.4 million hopes. And its subscription division? Peloton projects between 560,000 to 580,000 paid app subscribers by quarter’s end, a miss compared to Wall Street’s 608,200 prediction. But in classic corporate-speak, Stern’s job is to make that look like a strategic pivot, not a let’s hope the bikes don’t collect dust situation.

Still, investors seem to believe that Stern, with his Apple playbook, can breathe new life into Peloton’s ecosystem. After all, Apple knows a thing or two about making recurring subscription revenue feel as essential as water or Wi-Fi.

Peloton has been like a season of the Bachelor with more CEO changes than cast members. Barry McCarthy, a former Spotify and Netflix executive, stepped down in May after two years of trying to make a sandwich out of sh*t. The hope now is that Stern’s experience in merging hardware, software, and services will give Peloton the help it needs.

And judging by the market’s reaction, Peloton’s cult-like following might just believe he’s the Messiah on a bike they’ve been waiting for.

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Stock.News has positions in Peloton, Ford, Apple, Spotify, and Netflix mentioned in the article.