Dear Ryan,
In this former analyst’s humble opinion, you’re failing GameStop mightily, and it’s costing average investors a lot of money.
Do better. Much better. It’s painful to watch.
You have a hand-picked board of directors – mostly made up of people you’ve worked with at Chewy. At Chewy, you’ve created an online retailer that millions love. Still, the magic you found there didn’t fix GameStop. Some would say that business has gotten worse!
First-quarter 2023 sales: down 10.3% year-over-year. Net loss for the first quarter of 2023: $50.5 million compared to a net loss of $157.9 million a year ago.
In 2022 and 2021 combined, GameStop lost $694.4 million according to .
You failed to choose a leadership team and develop it based on the turnover under your realm.
For all his mistakes, how could a former Amazon executive in Matt Furlong not find some form of success at GameStop? A good trimester perhaps? The CFO you picked was fired in July 2022 after about a year on the job.
While I’m at it, why isn’t it on GameStop’s investor page? Showing these biographies is standard practice for public companies.
It’s all down to you as the leader, Ryan.
The company remains structurally struggling due to the increase in digital game downloads. You still have over 4,000 retail stores open worldwide despite the growing number of people buying goods and services online. Your push into NFTs has failed. Your decision to open more fulfillment centers may have failed due to line pressures that won’t go away.
Sales of collectibles – a key area of management – fell 22% in the first quarter.
There’s still no reason for the non-player to walk into a GameStop store. This is a problem, in my opinion.
Of course, I didn’t build a huge company like you did at Chewy. Nor have I sold a large company to another company like you did when selling Chewy to Petsmart in 2017. Nor have I taken a company public, like Chewy did in 2019.
I commend you for staying late nights to make these things happen. I’m a fan of stories of the heart and restlessness.
Nor do I have the vast wealth – that you earned from Chewy! — at my disposal, and that means I am incapable of overthrowing the board of directors of a public company and treating a company like a personal playground. That’s what happened at GameStop, in my opinion.
That bank account means you have more leverage in the public markets than I do, and you could swing your weight. And to have. Your past moves in Bed Bath & Beyond and Nordstrom — and bizarre tweets — show you’re willing to put your money where your mouth needs to make a point.
It’s your money, and you can do what you want with it. We live in a capitalist system, after all.
But you fail at GameStop.
And perhaps your biggest failing is the lack of communication with the average investing community.
A series of calls on 8-minute earnings over the past two years, led by Furlong, with no questions and answers? Are you kidding?
Not a single investor-focused event detailing your big plan?
I’m getting enigmatic for competitive reasons, but you’re a public company executive. Investors deserve to know the vision of a company controlled by you personally and your handpicked board of directors.
The average investor has placed a ton of trust in you, Ryan. They’ve spent hours and hours reviewing GameStop’s finances, supporting you on social media and comment sections on Yahoo Finance, among other things.
It’s time to show them the respect they deserve. The Ryan Cohen we spoke to at Yahoo Finance in 2019 seemed like someone who would at least have the idea to care about the average man.
Be that Ryan Cohen again. Investors deserve it…and have earned it by blindly supporting you for over two years.
Note: A spokesperson for Ryan Cohen did not return Yahoo Finance’s request to make Ryan Cohen available for interview for this article.
Brian Sozzi is the editor of Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn. Advice on the banking crisis? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com
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