Blue Apron Stock Jumps Post-WW Pair-Up

Blue Apron saw its stock price get a boost on Thursday (Dec. 27) after it announced its partnership with WW, formerly known as Weight Watchers, on healthy meal kits for dieters.

Yet, according to CNBC, despite the meal kit delivery company’s stock rising 17.2 percent, it is still worth less than $1 per share. Blue Apron shares have lost almost 70 percent of their value since the company went public last year. On Thursday, it ended the day at $.92. If the stock stays under $1 per share for 30 consecutive days, it will have six months to get above $1 or be delisted on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Last week, Blue Apron CEO Brad Dickerson said the WW deal gives his company the potential to reach millions of new customers without spending additional funds on advertising and promotions. Instead, Blue Apron will pay WW a fee when it obtains subscriptions from the partnership. Dickerson declined to reveal the financial terms of the deal, but he thinks it will enable Blue Apron to be profitable in 2019.

This is the latest partnership for Blue Apron. In October, it announced a linkup with Grubhub to offer a rotating selection of meals to customers within certain areas in New York City on the Grubhub and Seamless online and mobile platforms.

If these moves don’t help business, one of Blue Apron’s best hopes might be an acquisition, with one analyst suggesting that Walmart might be its best suitor.

“Like its $310 million purchase of Bonobos, buying Blue Apron would repeat Walmart’s playbook of acquiring a branded eCommerce startup with a more premium product to its core offerings,” said Matthew Trusz, equity research analyst of Gabelli & Company, to investors. “Further, Walmart could put Blue Apron’s meal kits into its physical stores, which we believe would meaningfully enhance Blue Apron’s profitability (more scale, less packaging).”