It’s been less than a year since I started working on this. It was an exciting day for nerdy NRDY (+6.71%) and media giants Nextdoor Holdings KIND +2.27 percent (NYSE: KIND) to go public, as well as media behemoth BuzzFeed +1.81% (BZFD). Since the beginning of 2022, Nerdy stock has lost 26 percent.
Given that the overall market is in decline and the Nasdaq Composite COMP +1.43 percent — which includes tech, biotech, and other growth-oriented firms — has fallen by 31% this year, this isn’t a huge surprise.
Nerdy cut its 2022 forecast after the market closed on May 16th, overshadowing an in-line first-quarter performance. Nerdy shares, The next day, fell by a quarter of a percent to settle at $1.93. It wasn’t long before Chuck Cohn, the CEO and creator of Nerdy, decided to go on the bandwagon.
Using a limited liability corporation, Cohn purchased the shares; he also has 9.3 million restricted stock units (RSUs) in a personal investment account.
“We are shifting to an ‘always on’ learning approach that increases access to learning and advances our goal,” he continued. As a result of this paradigm, client interactions with both consumers and institutions may be long-term and recurrent, resulting in increased operational efficiency.
The outperform rating on Nerdy stock was maintained by Aaron Kessler of Raymond James, although the target price was reduced to $5 from $7. On Friday, shares finished at $3.34, which is 39% more than the average amount Cohn paid for his most recent acquisitions.
A special-purpose acquisition firm called TPG Pace Tech Opportunities merged with Nerdy in September to become TPG Pace Tech Opportunities.
With the help of a SPAC, Nextdoor’s shares went public in November, reaching an intraday high of $18.59 on the first day. The stock ended the day at $3.15.
Nextdoor’s stock price soared after announcing a $100 million stock repurchase plan on June 1.
Two institutions with representatives on Nextdoor’s board bought large blocks of shares in the days following the announcement. An average of $3.33 was paid per share by subsidiaries of venture capital company Greylock Partners on June 3-7 for 5.8 million shares. 20.6 million Class B shares, which don’t trade on the open market, belong to Greylock. Nextdoor board member David Sze is a Greylock managing partner. In response to a request for comment, Greylock did not provide any information.
Mary Meeker, a Bond general partner, and Nextdoor director is also a director at Nextdoor. A representative for Bond did not return a call seeking comment.
Stock in BuzzFeed fell 11% to $8.56 on its first day of trading after a SPAC merger, as news of pre-listing investor withdrawals alarmed investors. Shares closed at $1.69 on Friday.
New CEO and the president have been hired, several editors have resigned; and the number of employees has been cut.
BuzzFeed’s stock price plummeted when a so-called “lockup period” ended on June 6th, allowing institutional investors and insiders to sell their shares. The next day, two insiders began purchasing stock.
