More Despair For Diamond Foods Holders, Risks Remain High (DMND, K, PG)

Diamond Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: DMND) is facing another round of the firing squad on Wall Street this Monday.  Things are bad enough that this hit yet another 52-week low. Some are saying that this is an all-time low, but this is ‘just’ a multi-year low back to very early in 2008.

This troubled almond food products player just cannot get its act together.  The company is going to miss its filing deadline for restated results to reflect all of the woes that have plagued the company.  To add fuel to the fire here, this puts Diamond Foods at risk of being delisted from the NASDAQ Stock Market as the missed date is beyond an extension already granted by the exchange before.

While Diamond Foods has been trying to shore up its balance sheet with a $225 million credit infusion from Oaktree Capital, the company still has management gaps and its shareholders have been so battered here that it is a miracle that the firm has not had to face the wrath of a shareholder posse.

Brian Driscoll, formerly of Hostess Brands, has only been CEO since May and Diamond Foods lost out on its diversification ploy to buy Pringles from Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG).  Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) stepped in and swept that deal out from under Diamond Foods, but that was expected as Diamond just did not have the funds and street-cred to pull this buyout off under the current circumstances.

Toi show just how bad things are, this stock is down over 7% at $18.75 and the stock hit a new low of $18.55 earlier this morning.  The prior 52-week range was $18.83 to $96.13.  Things have gotten so bad here that the market capitalization for Diamond Foods is now barely $400 million.

Unfortunately, the risks here remain high for shareholders.  Having a NASDAQ delisting risk is almost never a good thing.

JON C. OGG