Oatly: Things have turned a little sour since the company's IPO in May

8/5/21 7:00PM

A few months ago we charted about the rise of oat milk and how Swedish company Oatly, which had just joined the stock market, was making the most of oat milk's rising popularity.

At the time we noted that a $13bn valuation for a company that essentially combined oats and water was... quite a lot. Investors obviously didn't see it that way, buying shares in Oatly all the way up to a $17bn valuation, which it hit back in June.

‍Turning sour

‍Since then, things haven't gone quite as well for Oatly. First up Oatly's PR team had to defend their legal action against Glebe Farm Foods, a tiny entity compared to Oatly, that Oatly accused of infringing on their trademark. A judge couldn't see Oatly's point of view, ruling yesterday that Glebe Farm Foods is free to keep selling their "PureOaty" brand in competition with Oatly.

Simultaneously, a short-selling hedge fund called Spruce Point released 124-pages that claimed Oatly was misrepresenting its revenues and exaggerating how good its oat milk actually is for the environment. Oatly has strongly denied the claims, but they're unlikely to go away any time soon.

David Crowther, Claire Yubin Oh

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Shares of eBay fell as much as 10.5% in premarket trading on Thursday morning after the company gave a lower-than-expected profit forecast for the important holiday shopping season.

The e-commerce giant reported solid numbers for the third quarter on Wednesday, with revenue up 9% as reported to $2.8 billion and gross merchandise volume rising 10% to $20.1 billion, topping the average analyst forecast of $19.4 billion, per Bloomberg.

However, concerns about the future somewhat overshadowed these results.

eBay outlined its profit outlook for the period ending in December to $1.31 to $1.36 a share, with revenue at $2.83 billion to $2.89 billion. According to Bloomberg-compiled data, this broadly matches Wall Street’s estimates for the top line, but misses on the bottom line, with analysts forecasting EPS to come in at $1.39 — suggesting the company expects some further margin pressure.

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