Various Tupperware brand containers. SCOTT OLSON (Getty Images via AFP)
Tupperware, the company that pioneered airtight plastic containers 77 years ago, is facing a storm that threatens to wipe out its business.
Last Monday the price of its shares plummeted 50% after publishing a statement in which it acknowledged liquidity problems and expressed "substantial doubts about its ability to continue."
The sustained drop in its sales and the high volume of debt led the US company to publicly acknowledge that it is going through a "critical" moment, as announced by the company's CEO, the Mexican Miguel Fernández.
To get supplemental financing, the company is trying to attract new investors and develop some of the properties it owns "for potential sale-leaseback transactions."
Despite the difficult situation – in the last six months it has lost more than 75% on the stock market – the markets give it a breather.
Between Monday and Wednesday its shares fell more than 40% (from $2.45 to $1.40), but in the session on Thursday its titles grew by around 30% at the opening of the US Stock Market.
According to
Bloomberg,
the company has hired specialized advisors Moelis & Co. and Kirkland & Ellispara to restructure its debt, which has boosted its price.
The company's liabilities stood at 704.4 million dollars (just over 630 million euros), which represents a slight decrease compared to the previous year, but continues to weigh on its accounts, hence the structuring announcement has built investor confidence.
In 2022, its last full year, Tuperware had net sales of 1,305.6 million dollars (1,181 million euros), 18% less than the previous year.
Its path has been bumpy in recent years, with a continued drop in sales: in 2017 it sold 2% less than in 2016, in 2018 14% less, in 2019 13% less and, surprisingly, the pandemic helped them to sell 3% more in 2020, although it was not enough to stop the negative dynamics and during the past year they returned to the downward streak.
The gross operating result (EBITDA) was 124 million dollars (just over 112 million euros), 56% less than the previous year.
The emblematic brand —whose name is already used generically to designate any container in which food is transported— was founded in 1946 but consolidated its development a few years later.
He took off from the hand of a Detroit (Michigan) woman, Brownie Wise
,
who
he began selling the product door-to-door in small gatherings.
But its long history, its presence in more than 70 countries and the more than 8,000 patents it holds have not shielded it from poor results.
Despite the rise in the Stock Market, the interannual variation shows that in the last year it has lost more than 90% of its value on the Stock Market.
In April 2022, its share exceeded $27, thanks to an air balloon that came with the pandemic.
As a result of the confinement and when his shares reached minimums, the fever for confectionery and home cooking relaunched them on the stock market in March 2020, pushing their titles above $30.
But the joy did not last and in November began a fall that had its most vertical descent this week.
In last year's fiscal report, they point out that the blockades in China hurt their activity.
In all markets except South America, sales fell, and in Europe, the company itself acknowledges a "drop in consumer interest" in the brand.
This plastic lunch box became so popular that in 2017 it managed to convince the Royal Spanish Academy to officially accept the adaptation of the
tupper anglicism,
Spanishizing it under the term túper.
If he managed to prevail against such a demanding adversary, perhaps the markets will also end up surrendering to the quintessential food container.
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