Ryan Cohen—GameStop's largest investor and board chairman—was named the company's CEO Thursday, the latest in a revolving door of leaders that have come and gone since GameStop was targeted as a meme stock in January 2021.
GameStop branch in Munich, Germany on November 23, 2021.
Billionaire Cohen, founder of the Chewy online pet supply store, will serve as CEO in addition to his other roles, the Texas-based company said Thursday, but won’t be compensated for the job.
Cohen is the third CEO to take the helm of GameStop in the last two years, replacing former Amazon executive Matt Furlong, and the company has run through as many CFOs since 2019.
GameStop has been struggling since the mid-2010s, when online gaming and sales started to surpass brick-and-mortar shopping for video games, and investors have pinned their hopes to turn the retailer around on Cohen's plan to modernize.
Gamestop Corp. shares spiked just under 3% minutes after the opening bell Thursday on the news of the announcement.
GameStop stock soared more than 1,500% in 2021 after Reddit traders coordinated a massive surge in the stock's price. Small-time market watchers encouraged thousands of people online to buy GameStop after a handful of Wall Street firms had shorted the stock, betting it would fail. When the stock started rising sharply, those same short-sellers were forced to close their bets against the company at hefty losses. A few investors with no formal education in finance or experience to speak of on the stock market became overnight millionaires, including small business execs, an engineer, a purchasing manager for an auto-parts retailer and a professional baseball hopeful. Cohen’s net worth was also inflated—-his holding company RC Ventures bought a nearly 13% stake in GameStop in 2020, just before the stock surged, and his plans to turn around the struggling company helped fuel the initial jump in GameStop’s share price.
GameStop shares have fallen back to earth in recent years, trading at around $17.50 on Thursday after recording intraday peaks of more than $400 in early 2021. The share price is still above late 2020 levels, when it typically traded below $5.
Cohen has a net worth of $3.2 billion and, as of Thursday, was the world's 918th richest person. He co-founded Chewy in 2011 and sold it to PetSmart for $3.4 billion in 2017 In 2022, he bought and then quickly sold Bed Bath & Beyond stock for a $70 million profit and he also owns around three million shares in the embattled Chinese tech firm Alibaba.
Dumb Money, a movie about the GameStop's meme stock surge, opened in theaters earlier this month starring Seth Rogal, Paul Dano, Shailene Woodley and Pete Davidson.
Why You’re Almost Guaranteed To Lose Money Trading GameStop, AMC & Other Meme Stocks (Forbes)