Bed Bath & Beyond Shares Surge 100% After Buyback Announcement, Kroger Deal

Bed Bath & Beyond shares surged after the close on Tuesday as the company announced – amid a flood of earnings reports from other companies – that it planned to complete its $1 billion three-year share buyback plan by the end of this year, two years ahead of schedule. 

The company plans to buy the remaining $400MM in shares left of its buyback program by the end of the year. The news sent shares of the company up 100% after a session that has seen manic moves in shares of several companies including several other meme stocks.

The company also announced a new partnership with supermarket Kroger that will allow Bed Bath & Beyond and Buy Buy Baby goods to be sold on Kroger’s website and in certain stores starting next year.

The company also named Anu Gupta as Chief Growth Officer, a newly created position (she previously served in another executive level position).

The rally sent shares up 100% in after-hours trading, leaving them at their highest level in roughly a month.

Curiously, the company doesn’t have a large contingent of short sellers selling its stock short, making the magnitude of the move all the more unusual.

Imagine what would have happened if the company announced plans to buy 100,000 Teslas.

Read the full press release below:

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY) today announced that it expects to complete its $1 billion three-year share repurchase plan by the end of fiscal 2021, two years ahead of schedule.

Program-to-date, the Company has completed $600 million in share repurchases since the end of fiscal 2020. The Company now expects to repurchase the remaining $400 million of the program by the end of fiscal 2021, specifically over the third and fourth quarters.

Mark Tritton, Bed Bath & Beyond’s President and CEO commented, “We continue to execute our bold transformation and implement successful strategies that will fortify our near-term and long-term value creation. Today’s announcement further underscores our ongoing confidence in our turnaround, and our ability to simultaneously generate positive cash flow, maintain a strong balance sheet and invest in our long-term growth, all while returning significant capital to shareholders. We remain committed to our capital allocation framework of delivering strong and sustainable total shareholder return.”

Mr. Tritton continued, “As we continue to navigate the third quarter, the corrective and surgical pricing actions we’ve implemented are resulting in a trend toward expected gross margin rates for the period. Sales to date have remained consistent with the September trends we shared on our earnings call several weeks ago. Our focus remains on delivering comp sales growth in the all-important November month, which represents a disproportionately larger impact to our quarterly sales. We are preparing for the peak Holiday season and are particularly excited about the new future sales channels that we’ve announced today, which are our strategic collaboration with Kroger and our own digital Marketplace.”

During the first six months of the current fiscal year, the Company has executed approximately $225 million in repurchases with $100 million remaining under its $325 million plan for fiscal 2021. With today’s announcement, the total expected share repurchase amount for fiscal 2021 has now increased to approximately $625 million, nearly doubling the initial share repurchase plan of $325 million for the current fiscal year.

This expedited and revised share repurchase plan is consistent with the Company’s capital allocation principles of investing for growth and transformation, ensuring financial resilience, and returning cash to shareholders. As of August 28, 2021, total liquidity was approximately $2.0 billion, including the Company’s asset based revolving credit facility.

The method, timing and actual number of shares repurchased will depend on a variety of factors, including price, general business and market conditions, and alternative investment opportunities. The Company does not anticipate today’s announcement to have a significant impact in fiscal 2021.

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Source: PRNewswire