Beyond Meat announced Wednesday afternoon that it would price its secondary offering of shares at $160, an 18.6% discount to the closing price of the stock but more than six times the price charged less than three months ago.
Beyond Meat BYND, +0.90% plans to sell at least 3.25 million shares at that price, which would bring in $520 million, almost all of it for early investors, executives and employees. All but 250,000 shares came from shareholders, who will take home $480 million of that total. Underwriting banks — led by Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Credit Suisse — have access to nearly 500,000 more shares, all of which would come from selling stockholders instead of the company.
Beyond Meat sold shares for $25 apiece in an initial public offering in early May, but demand for a piece of the meat-alternative company from investors and those looking to bet against the company has sent shares soaring. The stock closed Wednesday at $196.51, which is considerably lower than the record closing price of $234.90 last Friday.
Shares took a hit after Beyond announced its planned secondary offering along with quarterly earnings Monday afternoon. The stock declined 12.3% in the next day’s trading session after the news.
The biggest beneficiaries of the secondary offering will be venture capitalists who bet on Beyond when it was a private company. The biggest planned sale came from legendary Silicon Valley VC shop Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which planned to sell at least 622,401 shares, which would bring in just shy of $100 million before fees. If bankers sell the additional shares they have access to Kleiner, more than 100,000 would come from Kleiner Perkins.
Chief Executive Ethan Brown planned to sell at least 39,130 shares, which would bring a total of more than $6 million, and Chief Financial Officer Mark Nelson planned to sell at least 55,418 shares for nearly $9 million. At least nine entities planned to sell more than 100,000 shares, led by Kleiner Perkins and Obvious Ventures, which offered up nearly 350,000 shares before any overallotment. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust planned to sell at least 128,737 shares in the offering.
Beyond Meat’s prospectus lists dozens of selling stockholders, including star snowboarder Shaun White, who planned to sell at least 1,069 shares, and professional basketball player Maya Moore, who planned to sell at least 760 shares.
Shares fell more than 5% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the secondary pricing was announced.
