Are Blue Apron Executive Changes Enough to Turn It Around?

The announcement of big changes to the Blue Apron Holdings Inc. (NYSE: APRN) executive team pushed shares of the food delivery service firm higher on Wednesday.

Brad Dickerson, who joined Blue Apron as chief financial officer in February 2016 and was appointed as president, chief executive and a member of the board of directors in November 2017, has decided to resign in order to pursue new opportunities.

In his place, the board has appointed Linda Findley Kozlowski as president, CEO and a member of the board, effective as of April 8, 2019. Kozlowski most recently served as chief operating officer of Etsy and prior to that as COO of Evernote.

Following Kozlowski’s appointment, Dickerson will serve as an advisor to the company for a period to assist with the transition.

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Additionally, Ilia Papas, Blue Apron’s co-founder and chief technology officer, will be departing the company to pursue new opportunities. His last day with Blue Apron will be May 3, 2019.

Matt Salzberg, Blue Apron’s board chair, commented:

We are incredibly excited to have an executive of Linda’s caliber as Blue Apron’s next CEO. Linda’s exceptional leadership and marketing expertise, as well as her understanding of Blue Apron customers as a long-time customer herself, will help her advance the company towards sustainable, profitable growth.

Based on its current view of the business, Blue Apron also reaffirms its prior guidance of a significant improvement in net loss and achieving profitability on an adjusted EBITDA basis for the first quarter of 2019 and for full year 2019. Consensus estimates call for a net loss of $0.06 per share and $154.11 million in revenue for the quarter.

Excluding Wednesday’s move, Blue Apron had underperformed the broad markets, with its stock down 5% year to date. In the past 52 weeks, the stock was down 48%.

Shares of Blue Apron were last seen up about 8% at $1.05, in a 52-week range of $0.65 to $4.15. The consensus price target is $1.54.

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