Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) collapsed in early trading on Monday due to a large shareholder dilution resulting from the early settlement of an exchange offer for its convertible debt. The company announced that nearly all of its convertible noteholders had agreed to a debt swap, exchanging over $1.1 billion of 2027 notes for new notes and up to 326,190,370 shares of its common stock.
Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown said the company was pleased to take a meaningful next step towards its goal of reducing leverage and extending debt maturities.
Brown founded in 2009 with the aim of creating plant-based meat alternatives mimicking animal meat. The company attracted attention with products like Beyond Burger and had an IPO in May 2019, debuting its IPO at $25 per share and raising $241 million. The first trading day saw the plant-based meat stock soar 163%, valuing the company at $3.8 billion. Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) reached a peak market capitalization of approximately $13.4 billion in July 2019.
Shares of Beyond Meat (BYND) slid 56.6% in premarket action on Monday to take its market cap below $155 million. Short interest on BYND was over 40% of the total float before the company’s announcement on Monday.