Wall Street had left Weight Watchers (WTW) for dead. Who needs to pay a monthly fee for diet tips when you can get them for free with an app on your smartphone.
The stock hit an all-time low of less than $4 a share in July. But everything changed in October. That's when Oprah Winfrey decided to take a 10% stake in Weight Watchers and join its board. She became a member too.
Shares soared as high as $28 in the post-Oprah glow but has since fallen back to about $19.
All of a sudden, CEO Jim Chambers went from being the head of a company that was rumored to be a target of activist hedge funds to the head of a company with arguably the best celebrity endorser alive.
Related: Oprah to appear in Weight Watchers ads
In the company's first earnings report following Oprah's investment, Chambers said there was "significant improvement" in the number of visits to the Weight Watchers website thanks to Oprah.
It's not clear just how much credit Chambers deserves for helping convince Oprah to invest in the company. But at the very least, he gets "points" for being in the right place at the right time.
