Jones v. Party City Holdco, Inc.
Jones v. Party City Holdco, Inc.
Opinion of the Court
MEMORANDUM OPINION
This putative class action
Facts
The Parties
M. Erik Meinholz is Lead Plaintiff on behalf of the putative class.
Defendant Party City Holdco Inc. (“Party City” or the “Company”) is a global party goods retailer and supplier.
Plaintiffs sue also two beneficial owners of Party City common stock—Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. (“THL”) and Advent International Corporation—and Party City’s underwriters: Goldman Sachs & Co., Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC.
Party City’s Business
Party City is the country’s largest retailer and world’s largest distributor of licensed (e.g., products featuring movie characters) and non-licensed party supplies, including costumes, balloons, decorations, and tableware.
Party City’s retail strategy consists of offering customers a “broad selection of continuously updated and innovative merchandise at a compelling value” through approximately 900 superstores, an online website, and over 300 temporary Halloween stores.
The Frozen “Phenomenon”
In November 2013, Disney released the movie Frozen, which became a worldwide sensation.
Plaintiffs allege that Party City, as a supplier of Disney merchandise, “attempted to capitalize on what it termed ‘the Frozen phenomenon’ in late 2014” by, for example, promoting its line of Frozen costumes for Halloween and including prominent images of Frozen merchandise in an investor presentation.
The IPO
In 2011, Party City had filed a registration statement with the Securities Exchange Commission in connection with a planned initial public offering (“IPO”). Ultimately, however, it did not go public and instead sold a majority of its shares to THL in a private deal.
A few years later, on January 21, 2014, Party City filed another registration statement for a planned IPO of 21,875,000 shares of its common stock.
The Alleged Misstatement or Omission
Plaintiffs allege that, “unbeknownst to investors at the time of the IPO, the success of Party City’s licensed goods in 2014 was due in large part to what Defendants later referred to as the Frozen phenomenon.’ ”
“We hold numerous intellectual property licenses from third parties, allowing us to use various third-party cartoon and other characters and designs on our products, and the images on our metallic balloons and ¿[ostumes] are principally covered by these licenses. None of these*189 licenses is individually material to our aggregate business.”22
Plaintiffs allege that the statement that none of Party City’s third-party licenses individually was material to its aggregate business was materially false or misleading because “Frozen's impact was so material to Party City’s business in the second half of 2014 that it could not be offset by Party City’s other licenses in the second half of 2015.”
“while the Offering Documents created the misleading impression that Party City could sustain its impressive sales growth in 2014 as customer demand shifted from Frozen to other licensed products, Defendants’ subsequent admissions revealed that because customers were not purchasing Frozen products in lieu of other licensed merchandise, Party City’s other ‘traditional’ licenses did not underperform at the expense of Frozen and were therefore not strong enough to offset the ‘anomaly’ of Frozen’s material impact on the Company’s financial performance.”25
Thus, plaintiffs argue, Frozen in fact was material to Party City’s business, and any Company statements suggesting otherwise were false or misleading.
On the last day of trading before plaintiffs filed their complaint, Party City’s shares closed at $11.80, down from the IPO price of $17.00 per share.
Discussion
“Sections 11, 12(a)(2), and 15 of the Securities Act impose liability on certain participants in a registered securities offering when the publicly filed documents used during the offering contain material misstatements or omissions.”
In order to state a sufficient claim under Section 11, a plaintiff must allege that: “(1) she purchased a registered security, either directly from the issuer or in the aftermarket following the offering; (2) the defendant participated in the offering in a manner sufficient to give rise to liability under section 11; and (3) the registration statement ‘contained an untrue statement of a material fact or omitted to state a material fact necessary to make the statements therein not misleading.’ ”
Section 12(a)(2) requires a plaintiff to allege that: “(1) the defendant is a ‘statutory seller’; (2) the sale was effectuated ‘by means of a prospectus or oral communication’; and (3) the prospectus or oral communication ‘include[d] an untrue statement of a material fact or omit[ted] to
Section 15 imposes liability on individuals or entities that “control!] any person liable” under Sections 11 and 12.
For each Securities Act claim, then, a plaintiff first must allege adequately a material misstatement or omission.
I. Material Misstatement
To state a claim under Section 11 or 12(a)(2) on the basis of a false statement, plaintiffs must allege that Party City’s registration statement or prospectus “contained an untrue statement of a material fact.”
As an initial matter, 'defendants claim that plaintiffs’ case “rests on an implausible, out-of-context reading of the alleged misstatement.”
While it is axiomatic that “a statement or omission must be considered in context,”
Even drawing all reasonable inferences in plaintiffs’ favor, however, they have not alleged adequately that the alleged misstatement was false—in other words, that Frozen in fact was material to Party City’s aggregate business. To be sure, they allege that Frozen merchandise was very popular and a big seller. But just because the Company described Frozen’s performance as “extraordinary,” “anomalous,” or “phenomenfal]” does not mean that it had a material impact on the Company’s aggregate business. As defendants point out, the CAC contains no allegations about the total amount of Frozen-licensed sales in 2014 or the percentage those sales represented of Party City’s aggregate business. Instead, plaintiffs rely on a handful of buzz words and a single financial metric, brand comp sales. Yet they fail to allege any connection between that metric and the Company’s aggregate business. In short, plaintiffs offer no facts from which the Court plausibly could infer that Frozen sales were material to Party City’s business as a whole. For that reason, plaintiffs have failed to allege that the Company’s registration statement or prospectus contained a material misstatement.
II. Materially Misleading Omission
Sections 11 and 12(a)(2) impose liability also when a registration statement or prospectus omits to state a material fact necessary to make the statements therein not misleading
Plaintiffs contend that “Party City’s representation that none of its ‘licenses is individually material to [its] aggregate business’ was materially misleading by omitting that the ‘phenomenal’ and ‘anomalous’ success of Party City’s Frozen merchandise was in fact critical to the
III. Section 15 Claims
Having failed to plead a primary violation under Section 11 or 12(a)(2), plaintiffs’ Section 15 claims too must be dismissed.
Conclusion
Defendants’ motions to dismiss the CAC [DI 85, 88] are granted.
SO ORDERED.
. Meinholz brings this action "on behalf of all persons and entities ... who purchased shares in or traceable to Party City's April 16, 2015 initial public offering ('IPO') of 25,156,-250 shares of Party City common stock offered and sold pursuant to [various offering documents]." Compl. [DI 51] at 1. The Court assumes for the purposes of this motion the truth of the well-pleaded factual allegations of the complaint.
. 15 U.S.C. §§ 77k, 771(a)(2), 77o.
. DI 37.
. DI 51 ¶ 17.
. DI 51 ¶¶ 19-20.
. DI 51 ¶¶ 22-30.
. DI 51 ¶ 1.
. DI 90 at 3-4.
. DI 51 ¶ 17.
.DI 51 ¶ 33.
. See DI 51 ¶¶ 34-39.
. DI 51 ¶ 41.
. DI 51 ¶ 41.
. DI 51 ¶ 42 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting 'Frozen’ Performs for'Disney-— Merchandise Tied to Animated Blockbuster Continues to Buoy Media Firm’s Results, Wall St. J„ Feb. 4, 2015).
. DI 51 ¶¶ 43-45.
. DI 51 ¶ 32.
. DI 51 at 1; DI 89-1 at 8. In addition, Party City granted the underwriters an option to purchase up to 3,281,250 additional shares. DI 89-1 at 8.
. DI 89-4 at 3.
. DI 51 ¶ 46.
. DI 51 ¶ 40 .(emphasis omitted).
. DI 51 ¶ 49 (emphasis omitted).
. DI 51 ¶ 49 (emphasis in original).
. DI 51 ¶ 54.
. DI 51 ¶¶ 54-66; DI 51 ¶6 (defining "brand comp sales”); DI 89-2 at 14 n.10 (clarifying scope of "brand comp sales”).
. DI 51 ¶ 65.
. DI 51 ¶ 65.
. In re Morgan Stanley Info. Fund Sec. Litig., 592 F.3d 347, 358 (2d Cir. 2010).
. City of Westland Police & Fire Ret. Sys. v. MetLife, Inc., 928 F.Supp.2d 705, 716, 720 (S.D.N.Y. 2013).
. Morgan Stanley, 592 F.3d at 358-59 (quoting 15 U.S.C. § 77k(a)).
. Id. at 359 (quoting 15 U.S.C. § 771(a)(2)).
. Id. at 358.
. In re Lehman Bros. Mortg.-Backed Sec. Litig., 650 F.3d 167, 185 (2d Cir. 2011).
. For a misstatement or omission to qualify as material, “there must be a substantial likelihood that a complete and truthful disclosure would have been viewed by [a] reasonable investor as having significantly altered the total mix of information made available.” N.J. Carpenters Health Fund v. Royal Bank of Scotland Grp., PLC, 709 F.3d 109, 126 (2d Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Basic v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224, 231-32, 108 S.Ct. 978, 99 L.Ed.2d 194 (1988)). To dismiss a complaint on the basis of lack of materiality, the alleged misstatement or omission must be "so obviously unimportant to a reasonable investor that reasonable minds could not differ on the question of their importance.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Ganino v. Citizens Utils. Co., 228 F.3d 154, 162 (2d Cir. 2000)). The Court assumes without deciding that plaintiffs have alleged adequately materiality at this stage in the proceedings.
. 15 U.S.C. §§ 77k(a), 771(a).
. DI 51 ¶ 54.
. DI 90 at 13.
. DI 90 at 15.
. DI 90 at 15.
. Iowa Pub. Emps. Ret. Sys. v. MF Glob., Ltd., 620 F.3d 137, 141 (2d Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting In re
. City of Westland Police & Fire Ret. Sys. v. MetLife, Inc., No. 12-cv-0256 (LAK), 2016 WL 6652731, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 10, 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting ATSI Commc'ns, Inc. v. Shaar Fund, Ltd., 493 F.3d 87, 98 (2d Cir. 2007)).
. DI 90 at 13 n.7.
. DI 89-2 at 88 ("We hold numerous intellectual property licenses from third parties, allowing us to use various third-party cartoon and other characters and designs on our products, and the images on our metallic balloons and costumes are principally covered by these licenses.”).
. City of Westland Police and Fire Retirement System v. MetLife, Inc., 129 F.Supp.3d 48, 88 (S.D.N.Y. 2015).
. Rombach v. Chang, 355 F.3d 164, 178 n.11 (2d Cir. 2004).
. DI 94 at 13.
. See In re IndyMac Mortg.-Backed Sec. Litig., 718 F.Supp.2d 495, 511-12 (S.D.N.Y. 2010).
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Roy JONES v. PARTY CITY HOLDCO, INC.
- Cited By
- 2 cases
- Status
- Published