© Reuters. Ryan Cohen’s Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) Falls 5% as Analyst Plays Down BABY Sale Talks
Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ:) are down nearly 5% after Loop Capital analyst Anthony Chukumba reflected on the WSJ report that several potential suitors are interested in the company’s buybuy Baby business.
The report noted that potential buyers are expressing interest in buybuy Baby business after an activist investor pushed the U.S. retail store chain to offload the baby-gear unit.
The latest potential acquirers include private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management and the blank-check company Tailwind Acquisition Corp., led by former Casper Sleep (NYSE:) CEO Philip Krim.
Bed Bath & Beyond has been considering different alternatives for buybuy Baby after the retailer added three new directors to the unit’s board as a part of a settlement agreement with activist investor Ryan Cohen last month. Two of the newly-added directors also joined the committee to monitor the buybuy Baby review.
Chewy (NYSE:) co-founder and GameStop (NYSE:) chairman Ryan Cohen holds a 9.8% stake in Bed Bath & Beyond. He has previously said that the buybuy Baby business could be worth as much as the entire company, which has a market cap of more than $1.4 billion. Cohen also urged Bed Bath & Beyond to explore a full sale option for its baby gear business.
Bed Bath & Beyond reported worse-than-expected financial results a few weeks ago, with its net sales plummeting 22% to $2.1 billion in the quarter that ended Feb. 26.
However, Chukumba said that the suitor interest “changes nothing” for BBBY. While the analyst expected the business to attract suitors, his valuation estimates vastly differ from those pitched by Cohen.
“We believe buybuy BABY is likely to be valued at no more than 10x F2021 EBITDA (implying a valuation of ~$700M) given the significant secular headwinds the baby products retailing industry currently faces(most notably the declining US birth rate and women becoming mothers for the first time later in life) and the chain’s less than stellar profitability (i.e., Best Buy posted a far superior nearly 8% EBITDA margin in F2021 and currently trades for less than 5x EBITDA),” Chukumba said in a client note.
“We also believe a buybuy BABY sale would likely result in a hefty tax bill for BBBY and believe the net proceeds of a transaction would be applied toward repaying a portion of BBBY’s $1.2B in debt as opposed to benefiting equity holders. Finally, we note given selling BBBY’s “crown jewel” would result in a money-losing remaining company that would still be saddled with a sizeable debt burden,” the analyst added.
Net-net, Chukumba reiterated a Sell rating and a $5.00 per share price target.
By Senad Karaahmetovic
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