Key Points
- GameStop fired CEO Matthey Furlong and elevated activist investor Ryan Cohen to executive chairman.
- GameStop posted its first profit in two years in the fourth quarter of 2022, but returned to losses in the first three months of 2023 as sales fell.
- Cohen said he would focus on capital allocation and management oversight.
GameStop actions ( GME) plunged after the electronics retailer fired CEO Matthew Furlong and named activist investor and board member Ryan Cohen as executive chairman as sales plummeted.  ;
GameStop said Cohen will assume his new position immediately and would be responsible for capital allocation and management oversight. GameStop said in a separate regulatory filing that Furlong was terminated “without cause.” He noted that Mark Robinson, the company's general counsel, had been named the new chief executive.
Cohen, the founder of Chewy (CHWY) and head of investment firm RC Ventures, took his first stake in GameStop in 2020, and in January 2021 he and two other former Chewy executives became board members. admin. His involvement in the business was seen as a key factor in fueling the meme stock craze in 2020 and early 2021, with GameStop widely regarded as the number one meme stock.
Furlong became CEO in June 2021 as the company was in the midst of a turnaround plan. The company posted its first profit in two years in the fourth quarter, but returned to losses in the first three months of this year as sales fell. GameStop reported a loss of $0.17 in the first quarter, with revenue down 10.3% to $1.24 billion.
“We remain confident that GameStop is doomed, with declining physical software sales and a shift in sales to subscription services and digital downloads sealing its fate,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said in a note Thursday.
GameStop shares fell by 18% Thursdays starting at 11:30 a.m. EST.
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Source: investopedia.com
