GameStop Corp. announced on Thursday that it has named Ryan Cohen, its largest shareholder and board member, as its new chief executive officer and chairman. The move marks the culmination of Cohen’s efforts to transform the struggling videogame retailer into a more online-focused business.
Cohen, who founded and sold online pet products retailer Chewy for $3.5 billion in 2017, has been pushing for a major overhaul of GameStop since he joined the board in 2020. He became executive chairman in June 2021 after the company ousted former CEO Matt Furlong, who had been hired only a month earlier.
GameStop said Cohen will not receive any compensation for his new roles and will relinquish his executive chairman title. The company did not provide any details on who will replace him as executive chairman.
According to Reuters, Cohen’s appointment comes as GameStop tries to recover from a turbulent period that saw its shares soar to a record high of $483 in January 2021, driven by a frenzy of retail investors who bet against hedge funds that had shorted the stock. The stock has since plunged more than 80%, including a 7% drop this year, as investors questioned the company’s ability to sustain its growth and compete with digital rivals.
Cohen has faced challenges in executing his vision for GameStop, which relies heavily on its physical stores and has seen several executive departures in recent years. He initially planned to shift the company’s focus to e-commerce and expand its product offerings beyond videogames, but he later scaled back some of those ambitions and instead leveraged the company’s brick-and-mortar presence as a way to attract customers and fulfill online orders.
The company’s latest quarterly earnings showed some signs of improvement, as strong demand for videogames, collectibles and consoles helped GameStop post a smaller-than-expected loss and revenue that beat estimates. However, analysts have expressed concerns about the slow pace of change at GameStop and Cohen’s mixed record as an activist investor at other companies he has targeted, such as Bed Bath & Beyond and Nordstrom.
GameStop teams up with QuadPay to power buy now pay later installment payments