GameStop Corp shares surged anew after chief financial officer (CFO) Jim Bell was pushed out in a disagreement over strategy, a move investors took as a sign that the video game retailer is on the comeback trail.
Media on Tuesday reported that Bell was ousted to make way for an executive more in line with the vision of activist investor and board member Ryan Cohen.
Insider on Wednesday also reported on the split, and investors on the Reddit discussion Web site seized on the news, helping send the shares up 104 percent to US$91.71 at the close. They went on to climb as much as 118 percent in extended trading.
Photo: Reuters
Cohen has been pushing to transform GameStop from a brick-and-mortar retailer into an e-commerce company, and he has been consolidating power at the chain. The former head of pet-supply Web site Chewy.com won three seats on GameStop’s board earlier this year.
An executive search firm has been engaged to find a finance chief with “the capabilities and qualifications to help accelerate GameStop’s transformation,” the company said on Tuesday.
Bell did not respond to a request for comment.
Trading in the video game retailer spiked over the final hour of trading, with almost 30 million shares changing hands in the last 60 minutes of the session. That marked the most active day since Feb. 5.
Other day-trader favorites, including AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc, headphone maker Koss Corp and retailer Express Inc, spiked as Redditors shared their excitement for a group that has had a roller coaster of a year.
The Grapevine, Texas-based video game retailer is undertaking a strategic review, largely the result of pressure from Cohen, who bought about 13 percent of its stock and became the company’s largest individual investor.
The activist has pushed GameStop to become a more direct competitor to Amazon.com Inc.
GameStop chief accounting officer Diana Jajeh would step in if Bell’s former post is not filled by March 26, the retailer said.
Bell has held the position since June 2019.
“Bell’s resignation was not because of any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies or practices, including accounting principles and practices,” the company said in a filing.
Shares of GameStop had tumbled as much as 4.8 percent to US$42.80 on Tuesday in extended trading following the announcement. Shares of the company soared as high as US$483 in January during a so-called short squeeze.
GameStop was not able to capitalize on that, although the company in December last year had said that it might try to raise as much as US$100 million through a stock sale.
The frenzied stock action was driven by traders on Reddit.
The US Congress is holding a series of hearings to determine if the surge and subsequent collapse in GameStop shares exposed any holes in the US financial system.
Shares in Taiwan closed at a new high yesterday, the first trading day of the new year, as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) continued to break records amid an artificial intelligence (AI) boom, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 386.21 points, or 1.33 percent, at 29,349.81, with turnover totaling NT$648.844 billion (US$20.65 billion). “Judging from a stronger Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, I think foreign institutional investors returned from the holidays and brought funds into the local market,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said. “Foreign investors just rebuilt their positions with TSMC as their top target,
Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday introduced the company’s latest supercomputer platform, featuring six new chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), saying that it is now “in full production.” “If Vera Rubin is going to be in time for this year, it must be in production by now, and so, today I can tell you that Vera Rubin is in full production,” Huang said during his keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas. The rollout of six concurrent chips for Vera Rubin — the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform — marks a strategic
REVENUE PERFORMANCE: Cloud and network products, and electronic components saw strong increases, while smart consumer electronics and computing products fell Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted 26.51 percent quarterly growth in revenue for last quarter to NT$2.6 trillion (US$82.44 billion), the strongest on record for the period and above expectations, but the company forecast a slight revenue dip this quarter due to seasonal factors. On an annual basis, revenue last quarter grew 22.07 percent, the company said. Analysts on average estimated about NT$2.4 trillion increase. Hon Hai, which assembles servers for Nvidia Corp and iPhones for Apple Inc, is expanding its capacity in the US, adding artificial intelligence (AI) server production in Wisconsin and Texas, where it operates established campuses. This
US President Donald Trump on Friday blocked US photonics firm HieFo Corp’s US$3 million acquisition of assets in New Jersey-based aerospace and defense specialist Emcore Corp, citing national security and China-related concerns. In an order released by the White House, Trump said HieFo was “controlled by a citizen of the People’s Republic of China” and that its 2024 acquisition of Emcore’s businesses led the US president to believe that it might “take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.” The order did not name the person or detail Trump’s concerns. “The Transaction is hereby prohibited,”
RSS