VANCOUVER — Following a slim first-quarter profit and lower sales, investors hammered Vancouver-based Papa Murphy’s on Thursday, sending the stock diving nearly 24 percent.
The take-and-bake pizza chain, which trades as FRSH on the Nasdaq stock market, ended Thursday at $9.49, off $2.93 from Wednesday’s close. That’s down from the $11 initial public offering price nearly two years ago and well below the 52-week high of $22.72 the company enjoyed last summer.
Analyst firms Jefferies and Robert W. Baird downgraded FRSH Thursday from “buy” and “outperform” to “hold” and “neutral,” respectively.
Papa Murphy’s on Wednesday reported its sales had dropped 2.8 percent in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015, and its first-quarter profit this year was $642,000 compared to $2.6 million in the first quarter of 2015.
