Blue Apron craters below $1 (APRN)
The meal-kit maker Blue Apron tumbled 12.06% to $0.95 a share Monday, nearly a week after an investor dumped the stock at a discount.*
On Wednesday, Bessemer Venture Partners sold a block of 15 million shares at a $1.15 apiece, representing an 11% discount to the prior day's closing price, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. Shares have since tanked 26%.Â
Blue Apron has had a rough time as a publicly traded company since its June 2017 initial public offering. First, Amazon announced plans to buy Whole Foods, causing Blue Apron to slash its IPO range to between $10 and $11 a share, down from $15 to $17, as investors worried about the competition such a deal would bring. Then, less than a month later, Amazon rolled out its own meal-kit business.Â
And in August of last year, Blue Apron announced it was having trouble keeping customers. The meal-kit maker said its total number of customers plunged by 24% in the second quarter versus the prior year and that revenue per customer dipped by $1 to $250.
After bottoming at $0.65 apiece in December, shares started to recover â up as much as 145% â following a December 20 announcement that Blue Apron was partnering with Weight Watchers to provide healthier home cooking, as well as a forecast of achieving profitability since 2019 sent out during its quarterly earnings release on January 31.Â
Blue Apron was down 8% so far this year.
*This story has been updated to reflect that Bessemer Venture Partners â and not Blue Apron â sold the shares.
Now read:
MI
