Nasdaq kicks off Bed Bath & Beyond delisting process

By James Rogers

The Nasdaq started its Bed Bath & Beyond delisting process Wednesday, less than two weeks after the troubled home goods retailer and some-time meme stock filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Nasdaq Stock Market started the delisting process for Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.'s stock Wednesday, less than two weeks after the troubled home goods retailer and some-time meme stock filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Nasdaq Inc.'s (NDAQ) listing center describes Bed Bath & Beyond's status as suspended, with "regulatory/non-compliance" cited as the reason. Bed Bath and Beyond's stock was trading under the ticker "BBBYQ" (BBBYQ) on the over-the-counter market Wednesday. The stock was down 4.1% at 7.2 cents in morning trading.

The home goods retailer's bankruptcy came after a troubled couple of years marked by strategic missteps, cash burn, challenging underlying business trends and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also read: Bed Bath & Beyond: from home-goods behemoth to bankruptcy

Once a staple of the U.S. retail landscape, Bed Bath & Beyond was founded by Warren Eisenberg and Leonard Feinstein, and opened its first two stores in 1971, in Springfield, N.J., and Cedarhurst, N.Y. The company grew exponentially over the following decades, opening its 100th store, in Irvine, Calif., in 1996 and its 200th, in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., less than three years later.

Bed Bath & Beyond went public in June 1992, and the stock closed at a split-adjusted $1.06 on its first day. With its star firmly in the ascendant, the stock closed at a record $80.48 on Jan. 3, 2014, after adjusting for four 2-for-1 stock splits along the way. The stock ended Tuesday's session at 7.5 cents.

At the time of its IPO, Bed Bath & Beyond had a market cap of $288 million, which rose to a high of $17.4 billion in June 2012, according to Charlie Bilello, chief market strategist at wealth management company Creative Planning.

Related: Bed Bath and Beyond takes aim at ocean carriers, seeks millions in freight dispute

Under the ticker BBBY, the company's market cap was $44.1 million Wednesday.

Barbara Kahn, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, said that, among the factors that doomed Bed Bath & Beyond was its inability to withstand the e-commerce onslaught from Target Corp. (TGT) and Walmart Inc. (WMT).

"Their whole core concept of 'killing a category' with a magical combination of more choice, lower price was usurped by e-commerce," she said, in the Knowledge at Wharton business journal. "Walmart and Target were much faster to recognize the importance of e-commerce, and both retailers invested in omnichannel strategies that built on their store advantages and capitalized on the convenience of e-commerce shopping."

-James Rogers

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05-03-23 1129ET

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