Blue Apron expected to go public between $15 and $17 per share. It went public at $10 and closed today at $5.83. Bloomberg and other financial media ran reports of a 24% layoff but the job reductions are but part of the picture. Blue Apron plans to open new fulfillment centers with more jobs than those lost.
The initial S-1 revealed Blue Apron's President has private equity underwriter PEU roots:
Matthew B. Salzberg, one of our founders, has served as our president, chief executive officer, and a director of Blue Apron since inception, and previously served as our treasurer until January 2017. Before co-founding Blue Apron, Mr. Salzberg was employed as a senior associate by Bessemer Venture Partners, a venture capital firm, from June 2010 to January 2012, and as an analyst by The Blackstone Group, a private equity firm, from June 2005 to June 2008.Currently Mr. Salzberg owns over 47 million shares of Blue Apron. Here's the breakdown:
In June 2014, we used a portion of the proceeds from the April 2014 Series C preferred stock financing to provide liquidity to Matthew B. Salzberg, Ilia M. Papas, and Matthew J. Wadiak, executive officers of our company, by repurchasing shares of common stock from them at a purchase price of $16.6586 per share. Salzberg sold 150,073 share for proceeds of $2,500,006.
In October 2015, Matthew B. Salzberg, Ilia M. Papas, and Matthew J. Wadiak sold shares of common stock to unrelated investors at a purchase price of $13.3269 per share, which was equal to the common stock-equivalent price at which we issued and sold Series D preferred stock in May and July 2015. Salzberg received $22,001,899 for his 1,650,939 shares.
Consists of (i) 25,154,605 shares of Class B common stock held of record by Mr. Salzberg, (ii) 19,744,091 shares of Class B common stock held of record by Family Trust Created Under Article V of the Matthew Salzberg 2014 Annuity Trust Agreement, for which Mr. Salzberg and his father serve as co-trustees, (iii) 2,500,000 shares of Class B common stock held of record by The Matthew Salzberg Family 2014 Trust, for which Mr. Salzberg serves as a trustee, (iv) 18,759 shares of Class B common stock held of record by Aspiration Growth Opportunities II GP, LLC, with respect to which Mr. Salzberg has shared investment and voting power and (v) 3,888 shares of Class B common stock subject to options exercisable within 60 days of April 30, 2017 of which 1,944 are vested as of such date.Salzberg got nearly $25 million for a small portion of his stock holdings prior to Blue Apron's going public. His $25 million came from stock sales at prices well above today's close. It's a nice gig when an executive can sell his stock on the inside at a multiple of its current share value.
It's also cool when you can hire your brother:
Shaun Salzberg Design, LLC, which is owned by Shaun Salzberg, the brother of Matthew B. Salzberg, provides software design, implementation, and related services to us as an independent contractor. For these services, we pay hourly fees and reimburse specified expenses. These services were initially provided under a consulting agreement dated October 28, 2015 and, following expiration of the agreement on October 28, 2016, have continued to be provided on substantially the same terms. To date, we have paid Shaun Salzberg Design, LLC an aggregate of $149,550 pursuant to these arrangements.While Bloomberg got the employment story wrong this tidbit is enlighteing:
Our tri-class capital structure has the effect of concentrating voting control with our president and chief executive officer, Matthew B. Salzberg, and the other holders of Class B common stock. This structure will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters, including a change of control, and might affect the market price of our Class A common stock.I bet Salzberg learned it from Blackstone. It's a PEU world.
