US – American food company specializing in strained yogurt, Chobani has filed a withdrawal of plans for an initial public offering (IPO), according to a regulatory filing citing current market conditions.
The Greek yogurt maker did not provide many details for the IPO withdrawal, but just stated “Our focus remains on strong execution and driving profitable growth, and we continue to be excited about the future of Chobani.”
According to IRI data crunched by 201 Analytics, US retail sales of yogurts were up +12% (dollar sales) in July 2022 vs July 2021, reflecting inflationary pressures, while units slumped by -6.6% (IRI: Total US food, club, dollar, mass, military stores, excluding convenience stores).
Chobani has not shared any performance updates recently, but according to its November 2021 prospectus, it posted a net loss of US$24m on net sales up +13.8% to US$1.21bn for the nine months ended September 25, 2021.
Of this, 86% (US$1.0452bn) of net sales were generated from yogurt, while 14% ($167.8m) came from other products such as oat milk, said Chobani.
The company filed in November to go public on the Nasdaq Exchange using the ticker “CHO” and as Reuters reported, the yogurt maker was seeking a valuation of more than US$10 billion.
This was a move that was inspired by Chobani Founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya, who had said in a February 2021 statement: “As we create the food company of the future, we’ll look at all the options carefully to fuel our ambitious plans.”
This would be especially with oat milk and plant-based products. An IPO is definitely one exciting direction but whether or not we’re public, we’ll keep disrupting and making things better.”
In its IPO filing, the company revealed its revenue grew 5.2% to US$1.4 billion from 2019 to 2020 after it expanded its product portfolio beyond Greek yogurt, adding oat milk, coffee creamers, cold brew coffee, and yogurt drinks to its roster.
However, its net loss more than tripled during that time, reaching $58.7 million, as it invested back into its business.
Chobani said it planned to use a portion of the proceeds from the IPO to pay down debt while using the opportunity to reorganize its corporate structure as part of the process.
However, In March 2022, the company delayed its planned IPO, and four executives, the president and chief operating officer, the chief people officer, the chief strategy officer, and the chief corporate affairs officer, left the company, according to a March 11 report by The Wall Street Journal.
At that time, too, the report from an unknown source, said the IPO had been put off due to turbulence in the markets that had started in November 2021.
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