WeightWatchers, which revolutionized attitudes toward food to promote weight management, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday to shake off debt and shore up its core focus.
Beset for years by market pressures ranging from free fitness apps to weight-loss drugs, the company is reorganizing to eliminate $1.15 billion in debt in hopes of regaining the flexibility to innovate, WeightWatchers said in a media release.
It expects to emerge from the process in 45 or fewer days as a publicly traded company, its loans and bonds owned by a group of institutional investors, according to The Wall Street Journal.
CEO Tara Comonte assured the company’s 3.3 million members that nothing would change on their end.
“For more than 62 years, WeightWatchers has empowered millions of members to make informed, healthy choices, staying resilient as trends have come and gone,” Comonte said in the company’s statement. “As the conversation around weight shifts toward long-term health, our commitment to delivering the most trusted, science-backed, and holistic solutions — grounded in community support and lasting results — has never been stronger, or more important.”
WeightWatchers began in 1963 as a grassroots initiative launched by Queens homemaker Jean Nidetch, with in-person meetings as its centerpiece. As the idea caught on, recipes, cookbooks and the WeightWatchers magazine were not far behind. Nidetch and her business partners sold the company to Heinz in 1978, and it was later acquired by private equity firm Artal Luxembourg.
Oprah Winfrey touted the program, held stock and served on the board for 10 years but left and sold her shares last year.
While WeightWatchers forayed into weight loss drugs by acquiring the telehealth company Sequence in 2023, it also drastically reduced its number of in-person meetings and laid off thousands of workshop leaders during and after the pandemic. Many disenfranchised subscribers left the program altogether and, as of February, WeightWatchers membership had declined by 12% from the previous year, according to its earnings report.
Tuesday’s actions “will give us the flexibility to accelerate innovation, reinvest in our members and lead with authority in a rapidly evolving weight management landscape,” Comonte said.
Comonte plans to go back to basics, reviving legacy programs that she admitted have been neglected, while at the same time expanding the clinical side of the business, she told The Wall Street Journal.
With News Wire Services
