https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001326380/0...
"We are asking our stockholders to approve an amendment to our Third Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation, as amended by the Certificate of Amendment dated June 2, 2022 (the “Existing Charter”), to increase the number of authorized shares of our common stock to 2,500,000,000, and correspondingly increase the number of authorized shares of all classes of our stock to 2,505,000,000 for the reasons discussed below. Our Existing Charter currently authorizes the issuance of 1,000,000,000 shares of common stock and 5,000,000 shares of preferred stock."
Edit: Also, the fact that company leadership can get away with this kind of thing, fleecing retail investors for millions/billions of dollars, and face no consequences is...I dunno. I guess it's just normal now. Lawlessness, bribery, favors to the right politicians, lying without hesitation or remorse. People in media clutching their pearls over whatever the Gen Z kids are getting up to on TikTok while this shit is going on is just the icing on the cake.
(I couldn't believe myself at first seeing things like these happening and this clip in particular, how does one get millions of dollars for such an disastrously wild interview to me feels quite off to me)
Then I watched the video.
> I would trust that guy to make a sandwich.
Don't worry, we are just trusting him with around a measly 11 billion dollars.
This isn't even the worst part by the way, somehow the worst part to me feels like there are people who watched that interview and then somehow got even more convinced within this person/gamestop and publicly glaze him.
To them, I have a question like, are we watching the same interview? How can anyone watch that interview and then consider it in any way positively or anything like that, like huh, have we watched the same interview?
Perhaps some of us at first (like within that HN discussion) were/are trying to justify as if it is some massive brain effort by gamestop or anything and its a 5d chess move ,but to me, this interview showed me what the reality is actually.
eBay’s biggest issue is their declining online shopping marketshare. They’ve gone from owning nearly the entire market to just losing it.
Probably more people than ever have thought of starting a shopping search on eBay than ever (outside pandemic shortages).
The interview was so bad the first time I saw it I thought it was some sort of satire bit. No, it was real and the commentators were literally speechless.
Not much different than me having a bit of cash and putting 5% or 20% down to buy a home or car: now I’m a big asset and debt holder and you got some pieces of paper with dead presidents on it.
That was the hard part of the deal: will (enough) eBay shareholders want to be GameStop shareholders.
eBay shareholders would be right to be upset with eBay management. eBay has treaded water in a niche of online shopping while online shopping has grown massively. Whether GameStop is their solution or not, Iunno.
Drugs might explain many things.
The CEO made it seem like he himself didn't know how the math for the offer worked, and even when presented multiple opportunities to correct that impression, he made no attempt to convince anyone otherwise.
The reason is pretty apparent. They are bagholders. They show up in every thread about Gamestop boasting about how amazing Cohen is in a weirdly personal manner, and have a very fantastical view of how things are going to go -- because their investment depends on it, and they built a literal cult around the idea that GME would make them rich, which necessitates viewing reality a little differently from the rest of us.
I buy most of my physical games from eBay too
GameStop was trying to do a Private Equity style takeover. Everyone hates it when PE companies do that, but GameStop is an lol memestock so that fact was overlooked with all of the to the moon comments. I do not want any platform I use being taken over by in a highly leveraged takeover, especially not by GameStop.
> The total award consists of stock options to purchase 171,537,327 shares of the Company's Class A common stock at a price of $20.66 per share.
Tranche Award% Market Cap Hurdle EBITDA Hurdle
1 10% $20 Billion $2.0 Billion
2 10% $30 Billion $3.0 Billion
3 10% $40 Billion $4.0 Billion
4 10% $50 Billion $5.0 Billion
5 10% $60 Billion $6.0 Billion
6 10% $70 Billion $7.0 Billion
7 10% $80 Billion $8.0 Billion
8 15% $90 Billion $9.0 Billion
9 15% $100 Billion $10.0 Billion
Swallowing a new company, even if it takes on debt, can bump this up.eBay market cap is $48B.
https://investor.gamestop.com/news-releases/news-details/202...
The Performance Hurdles will be adjusted by the Committee equitably and proportionately as determined by the Committee in a manner designed to preserve the economic opportunity provided under the Award, (a) higher to account for acquisition activity for which stock is provided as consideration; and (b) lower to account for a split-up, spin-off, dividend or other distribution (whether in the form of cash, shares, other securities, or other property) or divestiture activity, in each case, that could be considered material to the achievement of the Performance Hurdles, as applicable.
Matt Levine's recent opinion piece for Bloomberg ("GameStop Doesn’t Have Enough Stock", https://archive.ph/3h8wf) goes into a bit more detail about it, including why such an acquisition might still help him get there even if it doesn't instantly get him halfway.Kind reminder to donate to archive.org: https://archive.org/donate
This helps because google captcha now sometimes require android phone qr code scanning etc. so I have uploaded the article on archive.org
[0]: I am creator of htmlpipe which archives archive.is pages on archive.org
(I was gonna add it as a comment below bstsb but it seems to have been detached now so can't comment on it)
tombert•51m ago
I am quite confident that if GameStop bought eBay, they would ruin it in the same way that K-Mart buying Sears ruined that company.
I could be wrong, I'm not a business person, but it seems kind of obvious that a company like GameStop, whose current existence appears to be due to a weird short squeeze anomaly, is not a sustainable business.
colechristensen•46m ago
They already have the position of used buying and sales, extending that into in store receiving and listing of items on eBay makes sense. eBay being in decline as well.
>K-Mart buying Sears ruined that company
Both were quite dead by the time that happened.
tombert•42m ago
I agree that if GameStop were basically rebranded as eBay brick and mortar stores, that might work. I guess I just feel like if it were GameStop itself that were managing it then it would be unlikely to actually work.
It's not like digital storefronts are new; I think GameStop should have been pivoting the moment that Steam started getting traction.
boringg•35m ago
coffeebeqn•32m ago
m348e912•31m ago
I am unsure how a Gamestop/eBay storefront would do. Physical manifestations of "eBay stores" have existed in the past and none of them did very well long term.
colechristensen•24m ago
A key here I think is the easy gradual transition here because Gamestop already has the used games business they could slowly integrate that into listing used games on eBay that were received at stores and then add related categories step by step with collectables and consumer electronics. There'd also be options of ebay items delivered to store which increases store traffic and doesn't involve giving strangers on the internet your home address, and there might be opportunities there to enter logistics and lower delivery costs for people.
Scoundreller•23m ago
At least my shipping broker in Canada uses small retail stores as dropoff points and then has a network of gig courier delivery companies they send stuff to for last mile delivery. Saves a lot on shipping costs.
I’ve noticed they don’t really integrate with gig couriers for last mile US shipments, just a few consolidators for mid-mile (eg: UPS Mail Innovations that uses USPS for last mile)
Might further delay delivery times but I use eBay to save some dollars in exchange for delayed gratification.
harrall•11m ago
Which means an eBay store would never make sense for my type of buyer or seller because I would just go to one of the many other existing entrenched retailers.
I know eBay pushes hard for regular retail but ultimately I see it as a marketplace for less fungible items and that’s what it excels at. Regular retail for regular items is easier because the user experience is always standard.
GameStop is trying to sit in the middle and trying to move product that is a little more fungible (previously used games and now more trading cards and collectibles) but I just don’t know how big of a market it is when you have to factor brick and mortar upkeep. I don’t want them to take down eBay in an experiment.
yalogin•40m ago
boringg•34m ago
For the benefit of all the people on this thread not understanding what the proposal is for the acqusition: "A leveraged buyout (LBO) is the acquisition of a company (typically by a private equity firm) using a significant amount of borrowed money (debt) to meet the purchase price, often 60% to 90% of the total cost. The target company’s assets are used as collateral for the loans, which are repaid using the company's future cash flows."
applfanboysbgon•20m ago
rtkwe•9m ago
rtkwe•11m ago
DSMan195276•8m ago
Why do they need to buy eBay to do that?
danvayn•30m ago
Like yeah, GameStop clearly fits into the death of retail, and acquiring eBay does increase their market visibility or presence. Beyond that, what ebay/GS could’ve gained is way different and arguably more substantial than what acquiring Sears did for either company involved. Atleast here, one operates storefronts for second hand transactions and the other expressly doesn’t. There is definitely money in that.
jader201•11m ago
If I'm looking for X, I'd much rather go to an online store, where I have access to several listings of X at varying prices and condition, vs. make a trip to a physical store, see if they have X, and hope that the condition and price matches my expectations.
Maybe if I'm not looking for X, and just want to browse a bunch of stuff (e.g. yardsale/flee market style), then a physical store could make sense.
But, to me, having this middle-man physical presence was already a problem, and eBay solved this.
I just don't feel like eBay needs GameStop.
Now, whether GameStop needs eBay is a different story. But GameStop is in trouble for two reasons:
1. Video games -- and therefore video game sales -- are moving to digital.
2. Physical stores are becoming a thing of the past for retail transactions.
eBay doesn't need GameStop's troubles.
aresant•29m ago
Couple of highlights on Ryan
- Built and sold Chewy from a startup to the largest ecomm acq of all time - Became #1 individual shareholder of Apple early on - Bought a 10% share of Gamespot in 2020 becoming largest personal shareholder - Took over as CEO after being a proactive board member, works for no salary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Cohen
matthewdgreen•27m ago
love2read•25m ago
jader201•21m ago
_boffin_•21m ago
Ahh. 100b https://investor.gamestop.com/news-releases/news-details/202...
bayarearefugee•17m ago
Working for no salary is almost never charitable and is almost always just part of a larger tax avoidance scheme.
tombert•13m ago
rtkwe•4m ago
this_user•3m ago
Similarly, his strategic initiatives at Gamestop have all been failure (e-commerce push, NFTs, digital games platform, crypto investments, ...). The only thing that has worked is aggressively cutting costs, mainly by shutting down stores, which was a plan that had already been proposed by BCG before Cohen came onboard.
Basically, he has done nothing except for taking credit for a plan that was already in motion and repeatedly diluting shareholders to raise funds that have been sitting in T-Bills ever since. There is no indication whatsoever that this guy is some kind of business genius who would be able to run Ebay better than the current management - quite the opposite actually.
at-fates-hands•5m ago
I remember working in a CD Warehouse in the early aughts. Our store was next door to a Game Stop. The woman who worked at the Game Stop would come over and chat music with me when her store was slow. We used to joke about how both of our industries are seemingly dying a slow death. Console and game prices were going through the roof at the time. Compact Discs were being replaced by downloadable music. A few months before I quit, we finally started reselling DVD's to buoy the CD reselling part of the store.
As it turns out, the gaming industry outlasted the CD reselling business by quite a bit. lol