MoviePass’s Final Analyst Exits Stage Left as Stock Craters
MoviePass’s Final Wall Street Analyst Leaves Proverbial Theater
(Bloomberg) -- The last Wall Street analyst to offer investors insight into the company behind MoviePass has abandoned coverage.
Austin Moldow, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity, sent an email to subscribers Friday saying he was terminating coverage of MoviePass owner Helios & Matheson Analytics. The move follows the stock’s loss of nearly 100 percent of its value this year: It closed Friday at 2.4 cents.
Chief Product Officer Mike Berkley has also parted ways with the company, Variety reported on Saturday, just six months after he was hired.
Berkley’s departure is the latest blow for a company that was somewhat of a Wall Street darling last year. MoviePass grabbed the spotlight in the summer of 2017 when it began offering a movie-a-day subscription for just $9.95 a month. The program drew millions of customers.
But the offer was unsustainable for MoviePass, and losses mounted. Moldow placed the stock under review in July after a cash crunch led to a temporary service shutdown. Last month, MoviePass ended its movie-a-day program, offering instead a maximum of three a month.
Ted Farnsworth, the chairman of Helios & Matheson, once said the company would be worth $1 billion. It ended the week with a market value of $15 million.
Moldow noted other red flags, including the resignation of board member Carl Schramm, who cited unsuccessful attempts to obtain information about the company’s financial status and claimed a number of important decision were executed without the approval or knowledge of the board.
Helios & Matheson said in a regulatory filing that it was unaware of unanswered requests for information by Schramm -- and that no material information had been kept from any members of the board.
Helios & Matheson didn’t have an immediate comment. Alliance Global Partners, which had a price target of $12 in May, suspended coverage on Aug. 3. and Maxim Group, which had target price of $25 earlier this year, dropped coverage in April.
To contact the reporter on this story: Anousha Sakoui in Los Angeles at asakoui@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Brendan Case
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