William B. Cassidy | Sep 16, 2011 5:35PM EDT
YRC Worldwide’s stock plunged 77 percent Friday to 7 cents a share — its lowest price ever — after shareholders approved the trucking giant’s restructuring.
The shareholders on Sept. 16 agreed to steps that will increase the number of common shares in the company’s stock from 80 million to about 1.9 billion.
More than 350 million shares of YRC stock were traded on the Nasdaq exchange Friday. The stock opened at 28 cents per share after closing at 30 cents Thursday.
Most of YRC’s stock — 72.5 percent — will be owned by the company’s banking group, with another 25 percent owned by YRC Worldwide’s Teamster employees. Existing shareholders will be left with about 2.5 percent of the company’s stock.
The massive infusion of new stock and dilution of share value was planned as part of YRC Worldwide’s $500 million restructuring plan, approved in July. That restructuring secured favorable credit terms and wage and pension concessions from the Teamsters union that run through 2015.
The restructuring is expected to help the struggling LTL carrier recover from more than $2.7 billion in losses over the past four-and-a-half years.
The $4.3 billion company faces potential delisting by Nasdaq, which requires members of the exchange to keep their stock’s per share value about $1.
The company is appealing that delisting, and is expected to hold a reverse stock split to boost its stock’s value and stay on the Nasdaq exchange.
Contact William B. Cassidy at wcassidy@joc.com. Follow him on Twitter at @wbcassidy_joc
