It’s been a rough eight months for Grubhub’s stock price, but the company is celebrating good news in the form of $400 million in new financing through a private offering. According to the company’s press release, $340 million of that cash pile will be used to repay existing debt.
Going deeper into the weeds, the new funds are being run through Grubhub Holdings, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Grubhub Inc. The new notes will be senior unsecured obligations guaranteed by Grub and each of its domestic subsidiaries. In case you’re thinking about jumping in, the notes are only being offered to “persons reasonably believed to be qualified institutional buyers” under the Securities Act of 1933, which does not include armchair investors.
Given that U.S. interest rates remain low, relative to historical norms outside of the last decade, the new funds are essentially a large refinancing of existing debt, which presumably would lower interest paid by the company.
The news didn’t soothe investors, as Grub’s share price declined approximately 5 percent in the hours following the news. Its shares are currently trading just above $60/share, which is a far cry from highs seen in late 2018 when it briefly flirted with $150/share.
Waitr, the only other major third-party delivery service traded publicly before Uber’s recent IPO, has seen an equally dramatic fall in its share price since March when it approached $15/share. WTRH is currently trading at approximately $6/share.
