GameStop, the struggling brick-and-mortar online game retailer with a market worth of about $12 billion, desires to purchase eBay, an e-commerce firm price round $46 billion. This comes from a Wall Road Journal report which says that GameStop is quietly build up a stake in eBay shares in preparation for a proposal that might come by the tip of this month.
The report doesn’t counsel what a proposal would seem like or how it might be obtained, although a supply talking to The WSJ prompt that GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen may take the supply on to eBay’s shareholders if the corporate’s management isn’t . GameStop’s most up-to-date earnings report for the total yr of 2025 has the corporate’s gross sales at $3.6 billion, down from $3.8 billion the yr earlier than, and its working revenue lastly within the black at $232.1 million after a number of years working within the pink, with the corporate seeing an working loss in 2024 of $26.2 million. In the meantime eBay, which simply reported its first quarter 2026 outcomes, posted income of $3.1 billion for the quarter, up 19 p.c year-over-year. The corporate’s full-year 2025 income was $11.1 billion, up 8 p.c from the prior yr.
GameStop has struggled over the past decade, initially because of a broad trade decline in bodily sport gross sales amid the rise of digital that solely accelerated throughout the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. What adopted was a number of years of chaotic decision-making as a number of leaders tried to get the corporate again on monitor. In 2021, following a brief squeeze of GameStop’s inventory that despatched it sky-high for a number of weeks, then-CEO George Sherman introduced he would step down, and Chewy founder Ryan Cohen joined the board. In 2022, GameStop launched an NFT market, after which shut it down the next yr. Then in 2023, Cohen took over as CEO with plans to revitalize the struggling enterprise, which took the type of huge workers and retailer location cuts, promoting some worldwide operations, and griping about DEI for some cause. Most just lately, GameStop has been touting a “return” to bodily and retro video games, together with plans for “retro” sections in all its U.S. shops someday this month. It’s additionally seemingly been interested by shopping for huge quantities of Bitcoin.
Immediately’s information comes following Cohen’s feedback earlier this yr that he wished GameStop to accumulate a serious firm in an effort to lift its market cap to $100 billion, a transfer which might earn him a $35 billion payout. Absurd because it appears for GameStop to choose up a a lot larger and seemingly much less chaotic firm than itself, Cohen appears ready to take an extended, lengthy shot. “It’s finally both going to be genius or completely, completely silly,” he mentioned in January of a possible acquisition. Cohen has additionally lengthy had a cult following within the funding group, extra particularly amongst these interested by memestocks, and his actions previously have led to sudden funding surges primarily based solely on his personal decisions, and even simply his social media posts. Who is aware of what even a whisper about GameStop buying eBay will do to each firms’ inventory costs?
