Reddit crushes expectations, shares explode after hours

Papa John’s is up more than 10% in premarket trading on Wednesday, following reports that Apollo Global Management submitted a renewed bid last week to take the chain private at $64 per share.

Before Apollo’s fresh offer was first reported by StreetInsider on Monday and confirmed by sources cited by Reuters yesterday, the stock was hovering at just under $42 per share.

Still, “The situation is fluid and no deal is guaranteed,” according to people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported.

Apollo’s latest bid is a jump from the joint offer it reportedly made with Irth Capital Management for the pizza chain in June, then said to be worth a little above $60 per share. If a deal materializes, Papa John’s would be the latest restaurant chain to be picked up by a private equity firm, following in the footsteps of Subway, Dave’s Hot Chicken, and Jersey Mike’s.

Multiple other activists are still looking to take over Papa John’s, per Reuters’ sources.

Grindr said its largest shareholders have “engaged financial and legal advisers” to explore the possibility of taking the company private, according to a Tuesday regulatory filing.

The filing confirms a Monday report from Semafor and adds a tiny bit of clarity: the price for a take-private deal hasn’t yet been determined, the filing said, but it would be no less than $15 a share. Shares of the company, which had surged after the Monday report, pulled back some in Tuesday afternoon trading, to around $12.50.

James Lu and Raymond Zage, the shareholders who together own more than 60% of the gay dating app, have received a preliminary and conditional debt financing proposal of as much as $1 billion, per the filing.

While Grindr has generally performed better than its peers, it is still down about 30% for the year.

The move is being discussed, Semafor reported, as Zage and Lu had pledged nearly all of their Grindr stock for personal loans. Their lender seized some shares and sold them last week after the loans became undercollateralized following the stock’s recent slide.

Gaming platform Roblox is in the green on Tuesday, following a price target hike from Jefferies to $130 from $126. That target is about 5% below where Roblox is currently trading.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley maintained its higher $170 target on the company — one of gaming’s biggest “black holes.” Morgan Stanley called Roblox a clear leader in next-gen entertainment, with parallels to YouTube given its strong position in user-generated content.

In recent months, Roblox has seen booming player counts through updates and events in its most popular titles, including “Grow a Garden” and “Steal a Brainrot.” According to third-party tracking firm RoMonitor, “Steal a Brainrot” had more than 25 million concurrent players on Saturday, when a Halloween update was added to the game.