CEO Who Fired Employees Via Zoom Sees Stock Crash Spectacularly
Mortgage lender Better.com experienced a significant drop in share prices after going public, following financial decline, mass layoffs, and controversial behavior by CEO Vishal Garg.
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Posted 8/25/2023, 11:18:14 PM
thedailybeast.com
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Online mortgage lender Better.com, which recently made its public debut on Nasdaq, has secured $565 million in fresh capital, including a $528 million convertible note from SoftBank affiliates, as it looks to grow its business and improve its technology to provide faster and cheaper home loans.
Shares of Better.com plummeted after the company completed its SPAC merger and began trading as a public company, losing over 90% of its value due to a downturn in the housing market and a series of missteps.
Shares in online mortgage lender Better plummeted more than 95% as investors turned away following its merger with a blank-check company, coinciding with a surge in mortgage rates.
Better Home & Finance, a mortgage company that recently went public, experienced a significant drop in its share value, falling 93%.
Shares of Better Home & Finance Holding, the parent company of digital lender Better.com, plummeted 93.4% on its Nasdaq debut after merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), due to a weak mortgage market and dwindling investor interest in SPACs.
Shares of online mortgage lender Better.com plunged as much as 95% on its Nasdaq debut, following a series of controversies including a mass layoff of 900 employees via a Zoom call by CEO Vishal Garg.
SoftBank-backed company Better.com, led by CEO Vishal Garg, faces financial struggles and plummeting stock prices after going public via a SPAC merger, with investors attributing the decline to Garg's brash leadership style and the company's lack of financial controls.
Shares in online mortgage lender Better Home & Finance Holding rebounded slightly after a poor debut, with the company backed by SoftBank seeing a 4.3% increase in its stock price following a merger with a blank-check company, although it still finished the day down 93.4%; CEO Vishal Garg believes the company's technology will drive long-term growth and create shareholder value when interest rates normalize.
Digital mortgage lender Better.com had a disastrous public market debut, with its stock closing at just $1.19, resulting in a market cap of only $19.14 million, compared to its initial plans to go public at a $7.7 billion valuation. Conversely, Affirm, another fintech company, saw its stock prices rise by nearly 30% after reporting better-than-expected earnings.
Stocks are expected to decline as mortgage rates soar, causing many Americans to be unable to move and resulting in a bubble in home prices, according to economist David Rosenberg.