It was merely a technicality at this point but still it is both jarring and more than a little sad to see it happen. On July 20th, Bed Bath & Beyond’s stock on the over-the-counter market will officially be delisted.
Trading in the stock had of course stopped the minute the once-legendary/now-defunct Big Box retailer filed for bankruptcy in April, forever frozen at 29 cents a share right before the Chapter 11 petition was handed over to the court. So the Securities and Exchange Commission filing was largely moot:
“The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (the Exchange) has determined to remove from listing the common stock of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (the Company), effective at the opening of the trading session on July 20, 2023. Based on review of information provided by the Company, Nasdaq Staff determined that the Company no longer qualified for listing on the Exchange pursuant to Listing Rules 5101, 5110(b), and IM-5101-1.”
It doesn’t get any more cut-and-dry legalese than that.
Of course in the peculiar world of publicly traded stock, the BBBY ticker lives on in the realm of penny stocks. Listed under the “BBBYQ” name, trading in the stock continues and in fact MarketWatch, the online news service, recently reported that “investors have spent $200 million trading ‘worthless’ shares’ since the company filed for bankruptcy.” It said the stock “continues to attract meme-like attention.” It is currently trading at about 28 cents a share and went as high as 46 cents a share shortly after the bankruptcy filing…although why is anybody’s guess.
All of this is far cry from the glory days of the company. In 2013, its stock price peaked at more than $80 a share, back when the market cap – the total value of its shares – was over $16 billion and the company’s annual volume was $12 billion.
Now, shareholders hold worthless stock, a lot of banks and lenders lost a lot of money (though probably not nearly as much as you think) and many, many vendors are trying to get paid for past orders (probably much more than you think). The Bed Bath & Beyond name and online assets are now the property of Overstock.com for the bargain price of $21.5 million. That stock is up more than 20% since buying the brand, a reflection that investors think there’s a lot of life left in the name and customer lists.
The SEC filing contains one very bittersweet afterthought about this whole thing: “The Company did not appeal the Staff determination to the Hearings Panel” regarding the market delisting.
Yet one more final example of BBB management’s ill-fated attempts to save the company.
WarrensReport 