Weber Inc.'s (WEBR) days as a publicly traded company may be numbered, just 14 months after the grill maker's August 2021 initial public offering at $14 a share. On Tuesday, BDT Capital Partners, which already controls nearly 89% of Weber (there are two classes of stock, A and B shares), offered to acquire the Weber shares it does not already own for $6.25 a share. WEBR shares rose 30% to close at $6.56.
Now the question is whether there will be any other bidders or whether BDT will raise its own bid. The former is unlikely; why would another entity want to take a stake in a company already controlled by BDT? It may be slightly more likely that BDT raises its bid, although I'm not sure that I would hold my breath for that, either.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect about WEBR at this point is that the short interest ratio remains high at just over 47%. There have been a handful of mini-short squeezes for WEBR, but the odds of another one appear unlikely unless there is a bidding war.
Weber has had a brutal run as publicly traded company, with shares down 53% since the IPO.
Meanwhile, Getty Realty (GTY) , perhaps the largest gas station/convenience store real estate investment trust, raised its quarterly dividend 4.9% to 43 cents a share. That equates to a 5.75% indicated dividend yield. Since running into challenges back in 2011, Getty has increased the dividend at a 13% compound annual growth rate over the past 10 years.
Getty ended the second quarter with a real estate portfolio that included 1,013 net lease properties, five redevelopment sites and six vacant properties in 38 states. It has been a relatively decent year for the stock, which is down about 6% year to date. GTY trades at about 14x 2023 consensus funds from operations (FFO) estimates.
