Ryan Cohen Retweets GameStop Job Listing

Posted on by Joe Fonicello

At 6:32 PM, Ryan Cohen has retweeted an April 28th, 2021 tweet by GameStop SVP of Customer Care Kelli Durkin. Kelli Durkin was the mastermind of the award-winning customer support over at Chewy, and has since been brought onto the GameStop team by Cohen.

In the tweet, Kelli shared a LinkedIn job listing for GameStop looking to hire new customer care support associates. The job listing is located in Grapevine, Texas, but appears to be working remote as well, as several applicants were urged to apply from different locations such as Florida.

The job description states:

GameStop’s environment is dynamic and fast paced. We work hard, but we have fun, too! We are not looking for order-takers or script-readers – we’re searching for those who can engage with our guests and think critically to help the guest find the right products, set up their accounts, track down orders and get creative with solutions.

Kelli also included several Cohen-esque emojis: Two ice cream cones, followed by a bear and a set of peering eyes. 

The GameStop SVP has been a friend of the GameStop investor community, even sharing several “likes” on Twitter for GMEdd posts in the past. Kelli has been credited with the decision to begin responding to GameStop customers via their Twitter handle.

Source: Kelli Durkin on Twitter

GameStop Announces E-Commerce Fulfillment Center

Posted on by Joe Fonicello

The transformation begins.

GameStop will be putting their recently raised $551M to use, announcing a new fulfillment center on the east coast.

This will begin the expansion of GameStop’s North American fulfillment network through its entry into a lease of a 700,000 square foot fulfillment center in York, Pennsylvania. This facility is expected to be operational by the fourth quarter of 2021 and will support ecommerce and fulfillment needs. GameStop expects this fulfillment center in York, Pennsylvania will position the company to grow product offerings and expedite shipping across the east coast.

When Ryan Cohen was asked about fulfillment at Chewy during his TechCrunch interview in 2019, the founder discussed his opening of a fulfillment center in Pennsylvania, where, over the years, that warehouse has grown so much the company subsidized a Capital Area Transit bus route from Harrisburg and even opened a nearby recruiting office.

We hit an inflection point where three [third-party logistics companies] we were working with [were getting overwhelmed]. We’d give them weekly or monthly projections so they could plan ahead and have warehouse space, but they didn’t fully believe our growth and by the end of 2013, we had these 3PLs that couldn’t scale any more, so we had to bring fulfillment in-house.

We hired a bunch of people who were experts in fulfillment and we flew to Mechanicsburg, Pa. to lease a 400,000-square-foot space, and within nine months or so, we became expert at doing fulfillment. It was risky. It was totally outside of our areas of competence. But by August of 2014, after breaking everything first, that center was humming along, and then we launched another in Reno. At that point, we went national. 

More recently, in March 2021, Chewy announced another, new, Pennsylvania fulfillment center, and this one is located in York, same as GameStop. Chewy’s new facility is also similar in square footage, at about 732,000-square-feet.

The chewification of GameStop continues.

Sources: GameStop News Room, TechCrunch, PennLive

GameStop Completes Elimination of Long-Term Debt

Posted on by Joe Fonicello

GameStop Corp. today announced that on April 30, 2021 it completed its voluntary early redemption of $216.4 million in principal amount of its 10.0% Senior Notes due 2023. This voluntary early redemption covered the entire amount of the outstanding 10% Senior Notes, which represented all of the Company’s long-term debt.

On April 13th, GMEdd reported that GameStop would be engaging in the early redemption of Senior notes, in order to eliminate long-term debt. 

If the $551M raised through the share offering was funding this early redemption, GameStop still has ~$335M of that capital to spend towards transformation efforts.

In GameStop’s Q4 2020 Form 10-K filed March 17th 2021, these 2023 Senior Notes were cited as a restriction to the company’s ability to take advantage of certain business opportunities, such as:

  • declare dividends, make payments or redeem or repurchase capital stock or make distributions in respect of capital stock;
  • make loans and certain investments;
  • sell assets;
  • engage in mergers, acquisitions and other business combinations.

With long-term debt eliminated, GameStop will be free to declare dividends, repurchase stock, make loans, sell assets, engage in mergers and acquisitions, and more.  This action enables the company to remain flexible while undergoing the transformation.

Source: GameStop News Release, Form 10-K

Final GameStop Hearing on Thursday May 6th

Posted on by Joe Fonicello

The House Committee on Financial Services has announced the hearing schedule for the month of May. Included in the list is the third, and perhaps final, hearing on the GameStop-Robinhood-Reddit saga.

On May 6 at 12PM ET, the full Committee will convene for a virtual hearing entitled, “Game Stopped? Who Wins and Loses When Short Sellers, Social Media, and Retail Investors Collide, Part III.”

The first Committee hearing on GameStop included representatives such as Vlad Tenev of Robinhood, Ken Griffin of Citadel, Gabe Plotkin of Melvin Capital, and Keith Gill aka Roaring Kitty.

The second took place in Marchand heard testimony from from “experts” and investor advocates regarding regulatory gaps revealed by these events, and “assessed possible legislative steps to protect investors.”

This final hearing, as declared by Maxine Waters, will include testimony by:

  • Honorable Gary Gensler, Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
  • Michael Bodson, President and Chief Executive Officer, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation
  • Robert Cook, President and Chief Executive Officer, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc

GMEdd will feature a #regulatory channel on the Official GMEdd.com Discord server to discuss the hearing live.

Source: House Committee on Financial Services

Ryan Cohen Tweets Talking Piece of Shit

Posted on by Joe Fonicello

Ryan Cohen really loves his comedies.

At 1:35PM, the incoming GameStop Chairman has tweeted a gif of Mr. Hankey, a talking poo, from South Park.

In the gif, the character simply blinks, without any closed captions. This meant GMEdd had to dig deeper.

We found that the clip originates from Episode 110 of South Park, the ninth episode of the first season, titled “Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo.”

In the episode, the  Jewish character Kyle feels excluded from the town’s celebrations during Christmas , and is comforted by  Mr. Hankey, a talking and singing lump of feces wearing a red hat. Mr. Hankey does not come alive in the presence of other characters, so they think that Kyle is delusional. In another plot strand, the townspeople remove all religious aspects of Christmas from South Park to remain politically correct and inoffensive.

The segment of the episode that Cohen’s gif originates from is a scene where Mr. Hankey tries to convince the town of South Park to all work together, and stop focusing on all of the bad.

Source: Ryan Cohen on Twitter

Jim Grube: Excited for the Opportunity to Deliver Ryan Cohen’s Vision

Posted on by Joe Fonicello

GameStop’s latest board members and executive hires have done a great job ignoring the noise and focusing on their vision.

When Cohen took a board seat in January, he brought along Alan Attal and Jim Grube as fellow directors. Attal, a longtime friend and business partner, helped found Chewy and oversaw operations and marketing. Grube worked on Chewy’s customer acquisition model, which paved the way for its rapid growth. 

Amidst the rapid price-action in early 2021, Ryan Cohen responded to a request to speak to his local publication Miami Herald. Similarly, Jim Grube has taken the opportunity to publicly respond to a Dallas Morning News article, likely because they are a publication local to Grapevine, Texas.

The article, headlined: Ryan Cohen brings vision to struggling GameStop. Now, he must deliver., starts out by stating that perhaps no one, not even the day-trading hero they call Roaring Kitty, is more responsible for the improbable 700% rally in GameStop Corp. this year than Ryan Cohen.

The article concluded that the Grapevine-based video game company is in a strong position financially to execute Cohen’s plan.

In response, Jim Grube has stated:

A lot of work to do and challenges to overcome, but excited for the opportunity.

“The stock speculation aside, there is a great deal of potential for GameStop,” DFC Intelligence’s Cole said. “Someone like Cohen may be able to help unlock that.”

Source: Dallas Morning News, Jim Grube on Twitter

April 29th 2021 Editorial Update: Jim Grube has since posted the story on his LinkedIn, with the caption “Buckle-up!”

Source: Jim Grube on LinkedIn

GameStop Completes Offering, Raises $551M for Transformation

Posted on by Joe Fonicello

GameStop Corp. today announced that the company has completed its previously announced “at-the-market” equity offering program.

GameStop disclosed on April 5, 2021 that it had filed a prospectus supplement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to offer and sell up to a maximum of 3,500,000 shares of its common stock from time to time through the ATM Offering. 

GameStop ultimately sold 3,500,000 shares of common stock and generated aggregate gross proceeds before commissions and offering expenses of approximately $551,000,000. Net proceeds will be used to continue accelerating GameStop’s transformation as well as for general corporate purposes and further strengthening the Company’s balance sheet.

Earlier this month, GameStop disclosed that it issued an irrevocable notice of redemption to redeem $216.4 million in principal amount of its 10.0% Senior Notes due 2023 on April 30, 2021. This voluntary early redemption will cover the entire amount of the outstanding 10% Senior Notes, which represents all of the Company’s long-term debt.

Source: GameStop Newsroom