Petco Sees Big Gains in its Opening Day of Trading

It’s been an explosive IPO week with fintech company Affirm and resale platform Poshmark both scoring big with their debuts.

Another company to soar in its first day of trading this week was pet care retailer Petco, surging 63% on Thursday as it made its return back to public trading.

Shares of Petco Health and Wellness opened at $26 on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol WOOF. This was 44% above its IPO price. The stock then went on to soar as much as 63%.

It was on Wednesday night that San Diego-based Petco had priced its initial public offering at just $18 to raise $816.5 million.

The pet supply retailer was founded in 1965 and went public in 1994, but was taken private when its ownership changed hands.

The company has roughly 1,470 stores across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, including more than 100 in-store veterinary hospitals.

In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” Petco CEO Ron Coughlin said the company has competitive advantages over its rivals such as Chewy. According to Coughlin, Petco is adding vet services to more of its stores, which tends to cause pet owners to buy supplies and food while they’re there. He said it can use its stores to fulfill online orders. And he said its same-day deliveries can beat competitors on speed and price.

“We’ve seen the total addressable market grow significantly this year, and demand for new pets shows no sign of waning. Suffice it to say, our business was strong before the pandemic, accelerated during the pandemic, and we expect it to continue to grow at an accelerated rate long after the pandemic passes,” reads the company’s S-1 filing.

The company has seen a rise in sales during the coronavirus pandemic as more households adopted and fostered pets in the past year.

“We are the pharmacy. We are the drugstore. We are the supermarket for pets,” Coughlin told Yahoo Finance amid the pandemic in 2020.

The pet health and wellness company has served over 21 million active customers as of October 30th, according to the company’s filing.

“Our digital business has been growing at a strong rate since 2019 and is gaining share with millions of new customers flocking to our unique digital capabilities on both Petco.com and the Petco mobile app,” the filing also revealed.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.