A few months ago we charted about the rise of oat milk and how Swedish company Oatly, which had just joined the stock market, was making the most of oat milk's rising popularity.
At the time we noted that a $13bn valuation for a company that essentially combined oats and water was... quite a lot. Investors obviously didn't see it that way, buying shares in Oatly all the way up to a $17bn valuation, which it hit back in June.
Turning sour
Since then, things haven't gone quite as well for Oatly. First up Oatly's PR team had to defend their legal action against Glebe Farm Foods, a tiny entity compared to Oatly, that Oatly accused of infringing on their trademark. A judge couldn't see Oatly's point of view, ruling yesterday that Glebe Farm Foods is free to keep selling their "PureOaty" brand in competition with Oatly.
Simultaneously, a short-selling hedge fund called Spruce Point released 124-pages that claimed Oatly was misrepresenting its revenues and exaggerating how good its oat milk actually is for the environment. Oatly has strongly denied the claims, but they're unlikely to go away any time soon.
