San Diego-based Petco has returned to public ownership, selling itself as a pet health and wellness company positioned to eat up even more of an industry it says is valued at $97 billion.
Thursday morning, the company, which is headquartered in Rancho Bernardo and employs 26,000 people, listed its common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol "WOOF." The initial public offering was comprised of 48 million shares priced at $18 apiece, with Petco expected to pocket $816.5 million in proceeds after fees and other costs.
In honor of the occasion, Petco CEO Ron Coughlin and his dog Yummy, a yellow Labrador Retriever, participated in Thursday's Nasdaq opening bell ceremony at the exchange's Times Square venue in New York City.
Founded in 1965, Petco has experimented with various ownership structures — including two previous stretches as a publicly traded firm — over the past 55 years. Most recently, in 2015, the company traded hands in a private equity deal that valued the brand at $4.6 billion. Buyers CVC Capital Partners and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board have since operated the firm as a Delaware limited liability company. They will continue to maintain a controlling interest by way of voting power.
Today, the pet food and services company operates 1,470 brick-and-mortar locations with a reported customer base of nearly 21.5 million people.
In the 39 weeks ending on Oct. 31, Petco reported net sales of $3.6 billion, growing 9 percent over $3.3 billion in net sales during the same period in the prior year. It also improved from a net loss of around $94 million in the 2019 period to a net loss of $24.8 million in the 2020 time frame. The firm, however, has an outstanding debt balance of $3.3 billion, with proceeds from the sale of shares expected to go toward interest payments on loans.
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