What happened
Shares of Blue Apron (APRN +0.00%) were down 4% in afternoon trading Thursday, continuing to drop after the meal kit maker yesterday priced a stock offering of 4.7 million shares at $4.25, a 23% discount to the $5.53 per share level it closed at on Tuesday.
So what
Blue Apron is attempting to benefit from the minor rally its stock was enjoying. Shares had risen 50% from around $4 a stub in early May. It's still well below the $15 price they hit during the meme stock craze in January, but the bump in the stock apparently caused management to try to scrounge up $20 million in proceeds.
Image source: Blue Apron.
Now what
The company was on its heels prior to the COVID-19 pandemic striking, but with people forced to stay at home, having meal ingredients delivered to the door became a saving grace. Blue Apron's business soared and now it's counting on the new customers it gained during the crisis to remain afterwards.
President and CEO Linda Kozlowski told PYMNTS, "As a result of the pandemic, we saw that cooking habits increased in 2020, and both third-party and our internal research support that those habits are expected to continue to some extent into 2021."
The meal kit delivery company still might be a hard sell as people are looking forward to eating out again after more than a year of being at home.
