Following news earlier this week that Waitr’s chief financial officer will leave his post with the food-delivery service at the end of the month, the company’s share price has dropped 50% to below $1.
Shares of Waitr were selling for $1.16 when the market opened Wednesday, but following the afternoon announcement and SEC filing that CFO Jeff Yurecko would resign, effective Nov. 1, the price plummeted $0.58, a record low for the company. As of Friday afternoon, shares have risen to $0.61.
Waitr marks its one-year anniversary of being listed on the NASDAQ exchange next month. The company’s share price peaked in mid-March—roughly three months after acquiring Bite Squad—at $14.15, but has since dropped by 96%.
Additionally, the drop below $1 marks another tally against the company being out of compliance with NASDAQ regulations. The company initially fell out of compliance with the resignation of two board members earlier this week. The company must now work to replace those directors, as well as lift its share price above $1, or face the threat of being delisted by the NASDAQ.
Asked Friday morning if Waitr was considering delisting itself from the NASDAQ, or what actions it was taking in an effort to raise its share price, spokesman Dean Turcol declined to comment, telling Daily Report the company was in a quiet period before its third-quarter earnings release.
“All announcements will take place in our earnings call,” Turcol says, adding the call should be held in early November.
With the release of Q2 earnings, the company announced the resignation of founder Chris Meaux as CEO, replacing him with Adam Price, the former chief operating officer and a former Bite Squad exec. The company’s president Joseph Stough stepped down a month later.
For the second quarter, Waitr generated $51 million in revenue, compared to the $16.2 million generated for the second quarter last year. Just over half of that revenue—$26.1 million—came from the company’s $323 million acquisition of Bite Squad. Net loss for the quarter was $24.9 million, up from the $7.4 million loss posted for the same quarter in 2018.
With its second quarter earnings announcement, Waitr disclosed the company had hired banking firms Evercore and Jefferies as financial advisors for a review “to explore and evaluate potential strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value.” The company also developed a “Path to Profitability” initiative that aims to strengthen the business through synergies from its Bite Squad merger.
