Chewy (company)

Last updated

Chewy, Inc.
Company type Public
NYSE:  CHWY (Class A)
Industry E-commerce
GenrePet supplies
FoundedSeptember 28, 2009;15 years ago (September 28, 2009)
Founders
Headquarters
Plantation, Florida
,
U.S.
Area served
United States
Key people
  • Sumit Singh (CEO)
  • Satish Mehta (CTO) [1]
Products Pet food and pet-related products
RevenueIncrease2.svg US$11.1 billion (2023)
Decrease2.svgUS$−24 million (2023)
Decrease2.svgUS$39.6 million (2023)
Total assets Increase2.svgUS$3.19 billion (2023)
Total equity Increase2.svgUS$510 million (2023)
Owner BC Partners (80%)
Number of employees
18,100 (2024)
Website chewy.com
Footnotes /references
[2]

Chewy, Inc. is an American online retailer of pet food and other pet-related products based in Plantation, Florida. Chewy went public in 2019 with the ticker symbol CHWY on the New York Stock Exchange.

Contents

History

2011–2019: Founding, acquisition and pre-IPO

Chewy was founded under the name "Mr. Chewy" in June 2011 by Ryan Cohen [3] and Michael Day. [4] In March 2012, the company estimated a total yearly revenue of $26 million, despite losing money in its first half year. [4] [5] By 2017, the company had revenue of approximately $2 billion and 51% of online pet food sales in the US. [6] [7] At that time, CEO Ryan Cohen prepared to take Chewy public as both Petco and PetSmart approached with merger offers. [8] Petco's offer would be paid for in part using stock, whereas PetSmart offered an all-cash bid that would also allow Chewy to remain a completely separate business. [9] In 2017, Chewy was purchased by PetSmart, a retail entity backed by private equity firm BC Partners, [10] for $3.35 billion, which at the time was the largest ever acquisition of an e-commerce business. [9]

Following the acquisition, Cohen remained CEO and operated the business largely as an independent unit of PetSmart. [11] Between 2017 and 2018, Chewy’s sales increased from $2.1 billion to $3.5 billion, [12] with 66% of sales coming from customers signed up for automatic recurring shipments. [9] Sumit Singh succeeded Ryan Cohen as CEO of Chewy in March 2018. [13]

2019–present: Post-IPO

In 2019, Chewy filed an S-1 for an initial public offering, intending to trade under the ticker symbol CHWY. In its filing, Chewy reported a net loss of $268 million on total sales of $3.5 billion for its 2018 fiscal year. [14] In the 2019 fiscal year, Chewy earned net sales of $4.85 billion, a 40 percent year-over-year increase on a 52-week basis. The company saw increased demand from millions of existing and new customers as the business sustained growth throughout the economic disruption of the COVID-19 era. [15] [16]

Chewy launched a free tele-triage service called Connect With a Vet in October 2020. [17] In November 2020, Chewy announced that it would produce and fulfill orders of customized prescription medications, commonly referred to as compounding, for instances where commercial alternatives are absent. [18] In 2020, it was announced that Chewy and PetSmart would split to operate as separate companies. [19]

In March 2021, Chewy reported revenue of $2.04 billion for Q4 of 2020, making it Chewy's first quarter of net profitability, and net sales of $7.15 billion for the fiscal year. [20] [21] In March 2022, Chewy reported net sales of $8.89 billion for the 2021 fiscal year. [22]

In August 2022, Chewy announced the introduction of the CarePlus program, which provides pet insurance and wellness plans. This initiative marked Chewy's entry into the health insurance sector for pets. [23]

In the 2022 fiscal year, Chewy's net sales grew 13.6% since 2021, to $10.1 billion. [24] Following this, in December 2023, Chewy expanded its healthcare services by launching Chewy Vet Care. This service includes the establishment of veterinary practices that offer routine check-ups, urgent care, and surgical procedures. [25]

In fiscal year 2023, Chewy reported net sales of $11.15 billion representing 10.2% year-over-year growth primarily driven by increased spending from both new and existing customers, strength of Chewy's Autoship subscription program and growth of Chewy's pet healthcare business. [26]

Corporate affairs

The company's founder and first CEO, Ryan Cohen, stated that he used Jeff Bezos's 1997 letter to shareholders as a roadmap for how to grow Chewy by using Amazon's guidelines on the convenience of shopping online and customer service. [27] Cohen stepped down in March 2018, [28] and Sumit Singh was named the company's CEO in March 2018 after working as its COO since 2017 and previously as an executive at Dell and Amazon. [29] [30] [31] [32] Singh led the company through its IPO; Chewy grew to a market capitalization of $40 billion. The company reported to have employed around 7,000 people in the United States in 2018 and more than 12,000 by 2019. [33] [34] The company has more than 18,000 employees in the United States as of 2021. [35] Chewy is chaired by Raymond Svider of BC Partners. The private equity firm continues to own around 80 percent of Chewy following the latter's IPO, representing 98 percent of the voting power. [36]

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References

  1. ↑ "Chewy Inc". Bloomberg. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  2. ↑ "Chewy Inc. 2023 Annual Report (Form 10-K)". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. March 20, 2024.
  3. ↑ "Pet retailer Chewy.com is part of a growing breed". Sun Sentinel. June 11, 2015. Retrieved August 11, 2023.
  4. 1 2 "Pet product online retailer sees growth in a bullish market". South Florida Business Journal. March 30, 2012. Retrieved August 11, 2023.
  5. ↑ Woo, Stu (March 6, 2012). "Pets.com 2.0". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  6. ↑ Heroux, Mary (January 29, 2018). "Why has Chewy.com succeeded? Co-founder points to its customer service and changing times". Sun Sentinel. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  7. ↑ Dahlberg, Nancy (April 19, 2017). "PetSmart is buying Chewy.com in possibly the biggest e-commerce acquisition ever". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  8. ↑ Adams, Susan (January 10, 2017). "The Man Who Found Gold In Dog Food". Forbes. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 Gottfried, Miriam (October 1, 2019). "How PetSmart Swallowed Chewy—and Proved the Doubters Wrong". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  10. ↑ "Meet the Young Founders of Chewy.com, Which PetSmart Just Bought for $3.35 Billion". Inc. April 19, 2017. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
  11. ↑ Armental, Maria (April 18, 2017). "PetSmart's Latest Bite at E-Commerce: Chewy.com". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  12. ↑ Hirsch, Lauren; Picker, Leslie (June 13, 2019). "Chewy.com, PetSmart's online business, prices IPO at $22 a share, above expected range". CNBC. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  13. ↑ "Founder of Chewy.com stepping down as CEO". South Florida Business Journal. March 5, 2018. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
  14. ↑ "Online pet-food retailer Chewy.com files to go public". Business Insider. April 29, 2019. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
  15. ↑ "Chewy Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019 Financial Results". markets.businessinsider.com. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
  16. ↑ MacLean, Jayson (April 4, 2020). "Chewy is eating up the competition during the COVID-19 crisis". Cantech Letter. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
  17. ↑ Repko, Melissa (October 28, 2020). "Chewy launches virtual vet visits as pandemic fuels pet boom". CNBC. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  18. ↑ Tseng, Andrew (December 7, 2020). "Why Chewy Jumped 26% in November". NASDAQ. Archived from the original on April 16, 2021. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  19. ↑ "Reports: Chewy, PetSmart Split to Operate as Separate Entities". Pet Age. October 28, 2020. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Chewy shares soar as COVID-19 buying drove subscriptions, sales above $2B in Q4". news.yahoo.com. March 30, 2021. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  21. ↑ Verdon, Joan. "Chewy Fetches A Profit, Sees Strong Growth Ahead". Forbes. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  22. ↑ "Chewy Inc. 2021 Annual Report (Form 10-K)". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. March 29, 2022.
  23. ↑ Kaiser, Zigi (August 8, 2022). "Chewy Has a New Offer Pet Owners May Love". TheStreet. Retrieved March 6, 2024.
  24. ↑ "Chewy Plans International Expansion Following 13.6% Net Sales Growth in FY2022". retailtouchpoints.com. Retrieved March 1, 2024.
  25. ↑ "Chewy to open veterinary practices in Florida, Colorado". avma.org. Retrieved March 1, 2024.
  26. ↑ "Chewy (CHWY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript". Fool.com. Retrieved June 18, 2024.
  27. ↑ Verdon, Joan (January 26, 2020). "Ryan Cohen Started A Company That Took On Amazon, And Sold It For $3 Billion. Now He's Thinking About What's Next". Forbes. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
  28. ↑ "Co-founder Ryan Cohen stepping down as CEO of Chewy, a homegrown success story". miamiherald.typepad.com. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
  29. ↑ Stephanie Crets, "Roundup: Chewy CEO steps down and other personnel news," Internet Retailer, March 16, 2018.
  30. ↑ Chesto, Jon (December 25, 2019). "Chewy CEO sees big job growth in Boston". Boston Globe. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
  31. ↑ Hirsch, Lauren (April 29, 2019). "PetSmart's online business, Chewy.com, files to go public". CNBC.
  32. ↑ "Chewy founder leaves as former Amazon exec takes over". Retail Dive.
  33. ↑ Chesto, Jon (December 25, 2019). "Chewy CEO sees big job growth in Boston". Boston Globe.
  34. ↑ Pounds, Marcia Heroux. "Why has Chewy.com succeeded? Co-founder points to its customer service and changing times". sun-sentinel.com.
  35. ↑ "About Chewy.com". www.chewy.com. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  36. ↑ Nylen, Leah (March 9, 2023). "PetSmart, Chewy Overlapping Directors Focus of DOJ Complaint". Bloomberg News.
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