Plymouth's Tile Shop plans to delist shares from Nasdaq

Tile Shop Holdings is voluntarily delisting its company's stock from the Nasdaq Stock Market. The Plymouth-based retailer of natural stone and manufactured tiles made the announcement Tuesday and canceled its third-quarter conference call.

The value of the company's share fell by two-thirds in trading Tuesday. Shares finished the day at $1.13, down $2.22 per share. Over the past 52 weeks, shares have traded between an intraday low of $1 per share and a high of $7.99 per share.

"We've undertaken a thorough and thoughtful review of our cost structure, including costs associated with being a Nasdaq-listed and [Securities and Exchange Commission] reporting company," said Tile Shop CEO Cabell Lolmaugh in a statement. "After careful consideration, our board of directors decided to voluntarily delist from Nasdaq and deregister with the SEC as we believe the savings that will benefit our shareholders outweigh the advantages of continuing."

It is a move that could save Tile Shop hundreds of thousands in compliance and regulatory costs. In a note to employees and shareholders, the company also said it would save significant amounts of staff and management time that can now be redirected to managing the business and its store operations, but did not put a firm number on the amounts to be saved.

In 2018, Tile Shop had revenue of $357.2 million and earned $10.4 million from its 140 stores in 31 states.

Tile Shop's board of directors also announced that it was suspending the company's quarterly dividend and its share-repurchase program. The company had been paying a quarterly cash dividend of 5 cents per share. The board said it made those moves to reduce company debt and allow more investment in strategic initiatives.

The company canceled its third-quarter conference call but did file its results for the period ended Sept. 30. The company had revenue of $85.9 million, down 3.7% from the third quarter last year. The company lost $1.4 million after it had earned $2.6 million in the same quarter a year ago.

The company has fewer than 300 shareholders of record and announced that within two weeks it would file a form with the SEC to be delisted from Nasdaq. The company anticipates its last day of trading on Nasdaq will be on or around Nov. 8.

Tile Shop was nearing potential delisting from the exchange. Among Nasdaq's continued listing requirements is that a company have a minimum of 300 shareholders.

After leaving the Nasdaq, the company's shares may be eligible to be traded through the OTC Markets Group.

By moving to an over-the-counter exchange it will become more inconvenient and potentially more expensive for shareholders to buy and sell shares in the company because of lower trading volumes typically seen on OTC exchanges.

The company also noted in a Q&A in its filing that while the deregistration means changes to its listing and reporting requirements, there would be no impact on its customers or vendors.