A Wren Says

Allbirds, the sustainable shoe brand, is at risk of delisting. Essentially, the NASDAQ issued a formal warning to the company because its share prices have been under $1. (One of the standards that companies need to meet is that their shares need to be over $1.) If they are not able to meet that standard within 180 days, their stock will no longer be publicly listed.

This could be a conversation about the current product selection, what went wrong, and what they could be doing better. All of that should be discussed, at maybe some future point. But what I want to ponder now is whether or not being public really makes sense?

Yes, it could be a bad thing to be delisted, especially since it is not just an act that happens to a company but more of an assessment of its financials. But being a publicly traded company actually comes with some constraints. And maybe those constraints don’t make sense for where the brand is right now and its philosophy. After all, Nordstrom is trying to go back private, after years of being listed. They are choosing this route to be able to evolve the company on their own terms, not beholden to public shareholders focused on profits now.

There are certainly pros to being publicly traded, but delisting could give Allbirds the freedom to evolve and expand more freely.