May 20, 2019

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., May 20, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ: BYND) (“Beyond Meat”), a leader in plant-based meat, announced today it will report results for the first quarter ended March 30, 2019 on Thursday, June 6, 2019 after market close.

Shorting Beyond Meat stock is beyond expensive

May 30, 2019

Meaty borrowing fees are keeping short sellers from adding to their bearish positions in Beyond Meat’s stock. Though short sellers were to quick bet against the shares after they soared in their initial days of trading, short activity has quieted down more recently, in part because the stock has become so expensive to borrow.

Beyond Meat shares now carry a stock-borrow rate of about 68%, according to data from S3 Partners, a financial technology and analytics firm, making it so would-be short sellers would have trouble achieving an attractive return on their investments after taking into account the borrowing cost.

A borrow fee of 68% makes Beyond Meat the most expensive stock to short of all U.S. stocks with over $100 million in short interest, Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director at S3, told MarketWatch. Newly public Lyft Inc. ranks fifth with a 26% fee, which has come down in recent weeks.

“With much of its stock held by internal holders or in non-lending retail hands, coupled with a relatively small float, there is little hope of a significant amount of stock landing in lending programs until its 180-day lockups expire on Oct. 29,” Dusaniwsky said.

The maker of plant-based meat currently has the 14th-largest short interest in the food-products sector, recently crossing the $500-million threshold, but its “quick rise up the league tables” has been stalled by the high borrow costs and the paper losses that shorts have racked up thus far, Dusaniwsky said.

Analysts recently initiated coverage of Beyond Meat, with J.P. Morgan assigning the stock an overweight rating and a $97 price target while other analysts cautioned that the stock looked fairly priced after its massive post-IPO rally and set lower targets.

“If Beyond Meat’s stock price moves to the upper end of the range, we would expect a short squeeze in the stock as the increased mark-to-market losses coupled with high stock borrow rates would be a one-two punch most short sellers would find hard to stomach,” Dusaniwsky wrote. He added that a potential partnership with McDonald’s Corp. could “send its stock price soaring and short sellers incurring further losses,” now that rival Impossible Foods Inc. has struck a partnership with Restaurant Brands International Inc.’s Burger King.

First Quarter 2019 Financial Highlights Compared to Prior Year Period

• Net revenues were $40.2 million, an increase of 215%;
• Net loss was $6.6 million, or a loss of $0.95 per common share, compared to net loss of $5.7 million, or a loss of $0.98 per common share in the year-ago period; Pro forma basic and diluted net loss per common share, which is a non-GAAP financial measure, was $0.14 per common share in the first quarter of 2019 compared to $0.13 per common share in the year-ago period; and
• Adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-GAAP financial measure, was a loss of $2.1 million compared to a loss of $4.3 million in the year-ago period.

McDonald’s to Test Plant-Based Burger in Canada

Sept. 26, 2019

McDonald’s Corp. is getting on the plant-based bandwagon.

The world’s biggest fast-food company by revenue said Thursday it is testing Beyond Meat Inc. patties at restaurants in Canada for 12 weeks. Dubbed the “P.L.T.” for plant, lettuce and tomato, the sandwich will be on sale at 28 restaurants in southwestern Ontario starting Monday.

Many of McDonald’s rivals have already introduced meat substitutes made by Beyond Meat or rival Impossible Foods Inc. Sales of plant-based burgers and other meats from those companies have surged this year.

A few months ago, McDonald’s executives said they were watching whether the trend would last and those companies could maintain supply before adding meatless products to its menu.

The small 12-week test in Canada will allow McDonald’s to better understand customer demand and impact on restaurant operations, said Ann Wahlgren, McDonald’s vice president of Global Menu Strategy. Beyond Meat honed a patty recipe specifically for the chain, McDonald’s said.

Tim Hortons, the coffee-and-doughnut chain owned by Restaurant Brands Inc., introduced Beyond Meat sausage breakfast patties and burgers in Canada this summer. The chain cut back the plant-based burger offering earlier this month, saying demand was better for real beef. Beyond Meat patties are still for sale in Ontario, where McDonald’s is testing its own meatless products.

In Canada, McDonald’s P.L.T. will be priced at 6.49 Canadian dollars (US$4.90), McDonald’s said. That is slightly more expensive than Tim Hortons retail price of C$5.69 (US$4.36).

Mark your calendars. Beyond Meat, one of the strongest performing initial public offerings of the year, will end its lockup period on Tuesday, October 29.

On that day, a chunk of roughly 48 million shares — or about 80% of the company's shares outstanding — will become eligible to trade freely on the public market. And if shareholders elect to cash in on Beyond Meat's nearly 350% price surge since going public, it could spur a sharp sell-off.


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The lockup expiry won't be the first time the market has seen additional shares of Beyond Meat hit the market. In July, the company announced after its second quarter earnings release that it was selling an additional 3.25 million shares in a secondary public offering, which gave early investors an opportunity to cash out post-IPO gains of nearly 800%.

Third Quarter 2019 Financial Highlights Compared to Prior Year Period
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• Net revenues were $92.0 million, an increase of 250.0%;
• Gross profit was $32.8 million, or 35.6% of net revenues, compared to gross profit of $5.0 million, or 19.2% of net revenues, in the year-ago period;
• Net income was $4.1 million, or $0.06 per diluted common share, compared to net loss of $9.3 million, or $1.45 per common share in the year-ago period; and
• Adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-GAAP financial measure, was $11.0 million compared to an Adjusted EBITDA loss of $5.7 million in the year-ago period.

Beyond Meat shares crater as losses mount, company issues weak forecast

Wed, Nov 10 2021

Beyond Meat on Wednesday reported a wider-than-expected loss for its third quarter as U.S. sales shrank.

The company’s fourth-quarter outlook also fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.

Shares of the company tumbled 17% in extended trading.

Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:
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• Loss per share: 87 cents vs. 39 cents expected
• Revenue: $106.4 million vs. $109.2 million expected

Beyond reported fiscal third-quarter net loss of $54.8 million, or 87 cents per share, wider than a net loss of $19.3 million, or 31 cents per share, a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv expected a loss of 39 cents per share.

Net sales rose 12.7% to $106.4 million, missing expectations of $109.2 million.

In October, the company warned investors that it would be reporting weaker sales than it had previously predicted, citing a wide range of factors, including the delta variant and distribution problems.

And the company’s forecast doesn’t indicate a sunnier fourth quarter. Beyond is predicting net sales of $85 million to $110 million for those three months. Wall Street was expecting revenue of $131.6 million during the quarter.

Taco Bell Sends Beyond Meat’s Carne Asada Back to Drawing Board

December 9, 2021

Taco Bell canceled a planned test of a product from Beyond Meat Inc. after the fast-food chain was dissatisfied with samples in October, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Two Beyond Meat employees from the team that made the product, which was designed to mimic grilled meat known as carne asada, were terminated, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing private information. Another test of a Beyond Meat product could still happen as the companies will continue to work together, the people said.

.... Two Beyond Meat employees from the team that made the product, which was designed to mimic grilled meat known as carne asada, were terminated ....