Bed Bath & Beyond is Now Worth Less Than $300 Million

As the year ends the drama is far from over at Bed Bath & Beyond.

The beleaguered Big Box retailer has been in a steady but not-so-slow decline all year, losing executives, customers and serious money as it struggles to right itself before it runs out of all of the above.

In the process the company’s stock price continues to drop and as of Thursday morning Dec. 22  its market cap – the total value of the company based on the number of shares outstanding times the current stock price – had dropped for the first time ever to under $300 million. At about $296 million as of mid-morning with its stock price at just over $2.95 a share, the value of the company was a far cry from its historic highs.

About a decade ago its share price was more than $77 and its market cap topped $16 billion. Even as recently as four years ago when the home furnishings chain first began to show declines it was still worth close to $3 billion. Meme-driven spikes last year briefly took Bed Bath’s market cap to over $4 billion but this was driven more by day-traders than any real intrinsic worth in the company. At the start of 2022 BBB’s stock was trading at just over $13 a share.

All of this Wall Street investor pessimism comes in anticipation of BBB’s next financial reporting, expected the first week of January. Analysts have said they are expecting continuing declines in comp store sales and more losses on the bottom line. Bed Bath executives aren’t saying much other than earlier statements that they didn’t see any broad changes from previous dismal results.

In the meantime the retailer’s efforts to raise additional cash through debt-for-equity swaps have been largely underwhelming and it has twice extended the period it will accept these exchanges. The latest deadline is now Jan. 4, 2023 which is right before its expected next reporting period.

All in all, things are looking depressing for the retailer amid reports that some vendors are no longer shipping goods to them or not accepting new orders without payments up front. At under $300 million in total value Bed Bath & Beyond is a cheap buy for some investor willing to take a chance…just knowing the old adage that you get what you pay for.