Geerlings & Wade Inc., a direct mail and Internet retailer of wines and wine-related products, plans to become a private company, the Canton, MA, marketer said yesterday.
It will deregister its common stock and suspend its reporting obligations under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. It expects that the deregistration will be effective within 90 days of its filing with the SEC. The obligation to file Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K will be suspended, and its common stock no longer will be eligible for quotation on the Nasdaq SmallCap Market.
“The burden placed on the company, given its size, for maintaining its public status is considerable, from a financial and strategic standpoint,” Huib Geerlings, president/CEO, said in a statement. “Considering the lack of analyst coverage and the very thinly traded nature of our stock, the board of directors believes that the company and its shareholders are not receiving a meaningful benefit from being publicly traded.”
The company said in August that second-quarter sales totaled $6 million, a drop of 3 percent from last year's second-quarter sales of $6.2 million. It posted a net loss of $1.36 million compared with a net loss of $2.33 million in second-quarter 2002.
