Black Rock Coffee Bar stock soars on its IPO

Black Rock Coffee Bar’s shares soared more than 30% Friday. | Photo: Shutterstock.

Black Rock Coffee Bar’s stock soared well over 30% on Friday in the first IPO in the restaurant industry in three years. 

The Arizona-based coffee-shop chain, which finished the first half of this year with 158 locations, priced its shares at $20, raising $294 million in the process. The shares were trading around $27 per share in early-afternoon trading. 

The per-share price was above the $18-per-share price Black Rock initially gave as the top end of its range earlier this month. The IPO price suggested higher-than-expected demand before trading began, paving the way for Friday’s performance. 

Black Rock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol BRCB. 

The offering gives the public markets its third coffee chain, after Starbucks and Dutch Bros, at a time when beverages are hot in the restaurant space. Investors have been snapping up shares of Dutch Bros thanks to that chain’s performance. Its stock has doubled since its 2021 IPO.

Black Rock in its IPO documents reported strong sales and financials, including 10.9% same-store sales growth in the second quarter. Revenue in the first half of this year is up 25%. Store-level profits are up 28%. 

J.P. Morgan, Jefferies, Morgan Stanley and Baird are lead book-running managers for the offering. Stifel and William Blair are additional book-running managers. Raymond James is lead manager.

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