WW Worldwide, previously often known as WeightWatchers, has filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety on Tuesday in a bid to chop its debt after vastly standard weight problems medicine upended its enterprise mannequin.
Shares of the corporate, which as soon as boasted media mogul Oprah Winfrey as considered one of its high shareholders, slumped 40 per cent in prolonged buying and selling on Tuesday after asserting plans to file for chapter as a part of a reorganization plan with a gaggle of its lenders.
WeightWatchers started as weekly weight-loss help group assembly with 400 attendees and shortly was a worldwide phenomena with hundreds of thousands of members throughout the globe.
However the rising recognition of GLP-1 medicine reminiscent of Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound hit demand for its conventional weight-loss applications.
Winfrey left the WW board of administrators in Feb. 2024 to get rid of “any perceived battle of curiosity” after she admitted to taking weight-loss medicine, the corporate mentioned on the time.
A few 12 months earlier, WW had acquired a telehealth supplier to supply weight-loss medicine. But it surely reported a lack of $345.7 US million final 12 months, whereas its subscription revenues fell 5.6 per cent year-over-year.
WW mentioned the reorganization plan will get rid of $1.15 billion US in debt from the corporate’s stability sheet. The corporate has accrued substantial debt of round $1.6 billion US.
The corporate has estimated property and liabilities within the vary of $1 billion to $10 billion US, based on the Chapter 11 petition filed in Delaware chapter court docket.
After its rebranding to WW Worldwide in 2018, the corporate aimed to give attention to total wellness fairly than simply weight reduction.
The corporate’s shares have slumped 60 per cent because the Wall Avenue Journal first reported in April that the corporate was making ready to file for chapter within the coming months.
