Key Stats for Celsius Stock
- Current Price: $32.54
- Target Price (Mid): ~$51
- Street Target: ~$41
- Potential Total Return: ~56%
- Annualized IRR: ~11% / year
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What Happened?
Celsius Holdings (CELH) closed at $23.77 on August 6, its lowest close in a year and roughly 64% below its high, after a second-quarter report that missed on nearly every line. Then the stock climbed almost 37% over the next two weeks to close at $32.54 on August 20, still well below that high, and the recovery had almost nothing to do with the company’s numbers. It had to do with one man buying a very large amount of stock and going on television to demand the CEO’s job.
That man is Russ Savage, the founder of Rockstar Energy, the same brand Celsius now owns in the U.S. and Canada. His campaign and a leadership shakeup that removed the company’s second-in-command have turned a routine earnings disappointment into a governance fight.
The Man Who Built Rockstar Now Wants to Run Celsius
On August 7, one day after the print, Savage told CNBC he controls more than 12 million shares, roughly 4.7% of Celsius, worth about $300 million. He called for the removal of CEO John Fieldly, the chief operating officer, the brand manager, and the marketing manager, and volunteered to take the CEO seat himself. “The CEO has lost credibility with the investment community,” he said. “I’m publicly volunteering to do it.” Shares jumped roughly 12% intraday on the news, a move that had nothing to do with the results.
Savage, who changed his name from Russell Weiner in 2025, founded Rockstar in 2001 and sold it to PepsiCo in 2020 for roughly $3.85 billion. He says he began buying Celsius in March in the low $30s and had advised the company informally for over a year. His warning cuts to the heart of the quarter: “Once you lose shelf space, you’re dead.”
On August 10, Celsius announced a leadership realignment. President and COO Eric Hanson, one of the executives Savage named, departed the company. Celsius credited Hanson with unlocking value from its partnerships and acquisitions and noted he is eligible for severance, framing the change as a portfolio strategy rather than a response to the campaign. Tyler Bohannon was promoted to Chief Commercial Officer, and Tony Guilfoyle to a new Chief Business Transformation Officer role. Per one report, the board still backs Fieldly. The timing, whatever the stated reason, was impossible to miss.
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The Quarter That Started the Fight
Second-quarter revenue of $817.93 million grew 10.64% year over year but landed 5.99% below the $870.07 million Street estimate. The growth was almost entirely Rockstar: one analysis estimated that stripping out the acquired brand left group sales up only about 1.6%. The flagship CELSIUS brand saw net sales fall roughly 12%, with tracked retail sales down 2%. Adjusted EPS of $0.36 missed the $0.42 consensus, and gross margin sat near 48%.
CFO Jarrod Langhans argued the productivity story is intact: “Dollars per point of distribution are up approximately 16% in the second quarter versus the first, on approximately 7% fewer points of distribution.” Management says it traded shelf count for shelf quality, not lost ground. Whether that holds is the axis the stock turns on, because Savage’s bet is that lost shelf space does not come back.
Alani Nu grew tracked retail sales approximately 56% in the quarter and crossed $1 billion in first-half retail sales in tracked channels, just over a year after Celsius acquired it, with international launches planned for 2027. The bull case is that Alani is a genuine second engine while CELSIUS repairs itself. The bear case is that a 12% decline in your flagship is not a sequencing problem you innovate around on command.
What the Discount Is Really Pricing
Wall Street marked its targets lower after the print. Citi cut to $40 from $50, Stephens to $50 from $65, and Roth to $48 from $57, while Bernstein downgraded the stock to Market Perform. Most firms kept Buy ratings. The TIKR Street mean now sits at around $41, roughly 26% above the current price, on a spread of 12 Buys, six Outperforms, and five Holds, with no Sells.
At roughly 13.7x NTM (next twelve months) EV/EBITDA per TIKR’s Competitors data, Celsius trades below Monster Beverage at 28.5x and near Keurig Dr Pepper at 11.3x. On gross margin, Celsius at 48% carries the widest discount to Monster in the peer set, a gap that opened as the acquisitions diluted its cost structure. The discount is real, but so is the reason: Monster carries no integration overhead, and Celsius is mid-turnaround with an activist at the door.
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TIKR Advanced Model Analysis
- Current Price: $32.54
- Target Price (Mid): ~$51
- Potential Total Return: ~56%
- Annualized IRR: ~11% / year
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TIKR’s mid-case model values Celsius at around $51 by the end of 2030, implying roughly 56% total return, or about 11% per year. The two revenue drivers behind that number are Alani Nu’s continued scaling into the PepsiCo DSD system and a recovery of brand CELSIUS to category-level growth once innovation returns in early 2027. The margin driver is the integration flywheel: consolidated purchasing, better freight lanes, and a second North Carolina manufacturing line coming online in the back half.
The primary risk is Savage’s point. If the flagship’s lost shelf space proves permanent rather than a reset artifact, the revenue recovery the model assumes does not arrive, and margins alone cannot carry the stock. The upside: brand CELSIUS re-accelerates while Alani compounds, and a steep discount to Monster narrows. The downside: the core keeps shrinking, the fight drags into a proxy season, and the peer discount turns out to be justified.
Conclusion
The next real test is the third-quarter report, which third-party calendars place on November 5. Management has told investors brand CELSIUS will look similar to Q2, so the tracked-channel trend for the flagship is the number that matters, not headline revenue. A CELSIUS scan trend that stabilizes or turns positive would validate the “self-inflicted and temporary” framing and take pressure off the board. A continued double-digit decline hands Savage his argument and likely escalates the fight into 2027. Watch the flagship, not the portfolio.
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Should You Invest in Celsius?
The only way to really know is to look at the numbers yourself. TIKR gives you free access to the same institutional-quality financial data that professional analysts use to answer exactly that question.
Pull up Celsius, and you’ll see years of historical financials, what Wall Street analysts expect for revenue and earnings in the quarters ahead, how valuation multiples have moved over time, and whether price targets are trending up or down.
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
