Can the young and brilliant billionaire Ryan Cohen, who managed to beat Amazon in the “pet food” sector with his Chewy brand, achieve the same goal with GameStop, the video game and game console specialist that owns MicroMania? In any case, his interest in GameStop, which has been declining since fans preferred to buy video games on the Internet, has not gone unnoticed.
This young 34-year-old entrepreneur had already attracted the good graces of Wall Street in 2017 thanks to his masterstroke on Chewy, sold for US$3.5 billion to Petsmart pet food retailer. In September 2020, as an active investor (he is also one of Apple’s first shareholders), he set his sights on GameStop’s stock. He promised shareholders to turn the world’s largest video game retailer into a new Amazon in that sector. He took a 12% stake in the American company founded by two Harvard alumni with the aim of refocusing the GameStop’s business (sales of US$ 6.47 billion in 2020 via 7,000 stores worldwide) on e-commerce, which generated 25% of sales last year. However, faced with intense financial speculation that has gripped GameStop’s stock since January (the stock reached US$347 on January 27, at its highest point), Ryan Cohen joined the Board of Directors of GameStop and directly took over the company, forcing the resignation of the Chief Financial Officer. This visionary entrepreneur has all the cards in his hand to win his bet against Amazon.