A package of Beyond Meat beef crumbles is displayed for a photograph in Tiskilwa, Illinois, April 23, 2019.
Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Shares of Beyond Meat briefly fell below its secondary offering price of $160 Thursday.
Beyond’s stock, which has a market value of $9.8 billion, briefly fell nearly 5% to $158.81 per share in morning trading before regaining some of those losses.
Competitor Impossible Foods, which is privately held, announced Thursday that it had secured a deal with Sodexo. The foodservice company, which has contracts with universities, hospitals and prisons, will serve the Impossible Burger and other plant-based products at more than 1,500 locations.
The El Segundo, California-based company announced its secondary offering along with its second-quarter results July 29. Since then, the company’s stock has tumbled more than 27%.
On July 31, Beyond priced its secondary offering of 3.25 million shares at $160 per share, six times its IPO price. The price was 18.6% below its closing price the previous day, offering buyers a steep discount on the stock.
CEO Ethan Brown, who put 39,000 shares on the market, will net roughly $6 million from the sale after underwriting discounts and commissions.
Since its initial public offering in early May, the company has seen its shares hit an all-time high of $239.71 per share. Beyond priced its IPO at $25 per share, but investors eager for a piece of the meat substitutes market have sent the price surging, fueling additional interest from short sellers.
