GameStop is poised to appoint as its chairman an activist investor who is leading efforts to overhaul the video games retailer.
Ryan Cohen, the influential entrepreneur who co-founded Chewy, the digital pet food retailer, has been driving the chain’s shift online from traditional stores. He has played a key role in GameStop’s search for executives to focus on e-commerce and technology. Since the turn of the year the company has announced a series of new senior appointments, including a string of executives with experience working at Amazon or Chewy.
The company’s shares were at the heart of an online market frenzy during January and February, surging after day traders mobilised in an attempt to target the short-selling hedge funds that had bet against it.
However, other investors expressed a genuine belief in GameStop’s prospects as Cohen, 35, pushed for change. He owns about 13 per cent of the Grapevine, a chain based in Texas, which has about 5,000 shops across ten countries.
While shares in GameStop have fluctuated wildly, they are up more than 800 per cent this year to date. They climbed after confirmation of Cohen’s nomination yesterday, but later reversed gains to close down 4.3 per cent, or $7.71, at $170.26 in New York.
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GameStop said in a regulatory filing yesterday that it intended to elect Cohen at its annual meeting of shareholders in June. Kathy Vrabeck, the incumbent, is not standing. It also put forward Yang Xu of Kraft Heinz and Larry Cheng, the co-founder of Volition Capital, to join its board as directors.
GameStop said that the resignation of a board member, Kurtis Wolf, on Monday was not the result of a disagreement with the company.
Earlier this week GameStop raised the value of a planned share sale from $100 million to up to $1 billion. It also released unaudited results for the nine weeks to April 4, during which it said that total sales increased by 11 per cent.
