Ryan Cohen Tears Down Sears

At 12:39 PM ET, Ryan Cohen has tweeted once again. This time, it’s a photo of a SEARS big-box retail store being torn down for good.

On the surface, parallels can be drawn between Sears’ rise and fall through an unchanged retail experience and GameStop’s past, but speculators have begun to dig deeper and look for hidden meaning in the tweet.

The Origin

The photo originates from an article titled Former Sears Demolition Begins in Uptown District to Make Way for New Innovation Community Development in the Tampa Innovation paper. We already know GameStop is likely cementing themselves in Florida, but this information alone is not enough to substantiate a connection.

The article from January 15th, 2020 goes on to state:

 This urban renewal project… will shift from the property’s traditional retail origin and fully leverage the Innovation Community potential driven by its world-class, academic, scientific, and technology neighbors.

Sounds familiar.

Chewy Parallels

What is also striking is that Ryan Cohen and Chewy are no strangers to reimagining old Sears stores, as seen through Kelli Durkin’s retweet of a 2018 article by Bizjournals.

In a move emblematic of the retail industry’s seismic shift, Chewy – an e-commerce platform for pet products – has opened a customer service facility in what was once a Sears and a Woolworth’s.

Chewy opened up their premier customer service facility in a former Sears, a “Sign of the times”Mayor Josh Levystated. Is it possible that GameStop has begun to open their new South Florida customer service facility, and Ryan Cohen is paying homage to when he turned a Sears into a center for Chewy?

SEC Form ARS

Investors have also speculated that the final remaining letters on the SEARS logo, ‘ARS’, could reference the SEC Form ARS. Security & Exchange Commission (SEC) Form ARS, or the Annual Report to Shareholders, is a document used by a public company to report its latest financial performance to its shareholders shortly before its annual shareholders’ meeting.