Beyond Meat IPO: What You Need To Know

If you have an appetite for food stocks, Beyond Meat is taking veggie burgers to a whole new level, and it wants you to take a bite of the (perhaps eventual) profits.

The IPO

Beyond Meat, Inc. will issue 8.75 million shares on the Nasdaq under ticker BYND, according to the firm’s S-1 filing. Originally priced between $19 and $21, the offering represents 15.2 percent of outstanding shares and is expected to bring in about $211.31 million; The company said Tuesday it plans to offer 9.5 million shares priced at $23 to $25 each.

Update: Beyond Meat opened for trade Thursday afternoon at $46 per share.

Lead underwriters include Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Credit Suisse.

The company qualifies as an emerging growth company under the U.S. JOBS Act, which exempts management from certain SEC disclosure requirements.

The Company

The California-based firm manufactures plant-based “meat” to give diners the experience of traditional burgers without harming animal health, human health or the environment.

“We create our plant-based products using proprietary scientific processes that determine the architecture of the animal-based meat we are seeking to replicate and then we assemble it using plant-derived amino acids, lipids, trace minerals and water,” according to the prospectus.

Its beef, pork and poultry substitutes share the taste and texture of animal-based meat, so management considers the firm positioned to compete in the $1.4 trillion global meat industry. In fact, it requests to be sold in grocers’ meat cases instead of the produce aisle.

So far, Beyond Meat is available in more than 33,000 retail stores and restaurants globally, including A&W and TGI Fridays. It sells in Hong Kong and Europe, and management plans to expand in Asia over the next few years and open a production operation in Europe in 2020.

The Finances

Beyond Meat reported net revenue of $87.9 million in 2018, representing a 170-percent jump from $32.6 million the previous year.

The firm has been unprofitable since its start. Net loss was $29.9 million in 2018 and $30.4 million in 2017.

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Photo courtesy of Beyond Meat.