Blue Apron’s stock fell below $1 a share Tuesday, becoming a penny stock for the first time since it went public last year. The stock price has now fallen more than 90% from Blue Apron’s $10 a share IPO price.
The stock of the meal-kit delivery service plunged 11.2% Tuesday to close at 90 cents a share. The company ended the trading day with a market cap of $173.8 million, according to Yahoo Finance. Blue Apron’s stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which will often delist stocks that trade below $1 a share for more than 30 days.
Blue Apron went public in June 2017 at $10 a share, after initially hoping to price its IPO as high as $17 a share. After briefly rising to $11 a share on its first day of trading, Blue Apron’s stock slowly declined over the following months, as interest in meal kits faded just as competition was growing more intense. Notably, Amazon has been offering meal kits for Prime members.
Shares of Blue Apron have not only fallen below all price target set by analysts, it’s the third-worst performing IPO on U.S. exchanges so far this decade, according to Bloomberg. Only two IPOs have fallen more during their first 18 months: CHC Group and Eclipse Resources, both operating in the energy industry, which has been hurt by declining oil prices during recent years.
Last month, Blue Apron said it would lay off 4% of its staff. In October 2017, the company also had a round of layoffs that reduced its workforce by 6%.
