Long Island Iced Tea Sitting On 350% Gain After Rebranding As 'Long Blockchain Corp'

Shares of Long Island Iced Tea Corp LTEA soared higher by more than 300 percent ahead of Thursday's market open for an odd reason.

What You Need To Know

Long Island Iced Tea, a maker of non-alcoholic ready-to-drink iced tea, said Thursday it will rebrand its business to focus on the "exploration of and investment in opportunities that leverage the benefits of blockchain technology."

The company will also change its corporate name from "Long Island Iced Tea Corp." to "Long Blockchain Corp." and has reserved the web domain www.longblockchain.com. However, the company will continue to operate its beverage business and focus on selling a premium better-for-you beverage at an affordable price.

Why It's Important

Long Island Iced Tea believes emerging blockchain technologies are creating a fundamental shift across the global marketplace with far applications across all industries, including the beverage sector. Management is in the early stages of evaluating opportunities and potential partnerships but offers "no assurance that a definitive agreement" with one or any entity will be reached.

What's Next?

CEO Philip Thomas commented in the press release, "We view advances in blockchain technology as a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and have made the decision to pivot our business strategy in order to pursue opportunities in this evolving industry. We are committed to enhancing shareholder value and believe that our new focus is the best path towards this goal. We will, in the coming weeks and months, be taking a series of steps related to our efforts to assemble a world-class team of industry professionals to help us realize this vision. We are pursuing our new direction in a thoughtful and deliberate manner."

At time of publication, the stock was trading at $8.87, up 363 percent.

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