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Roaring Kitty sends a hidden message to GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen

Posted on by angelo
Roaring Kitty sends a hidden message to GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen

Does Roaring Kitty have bigger plans than just making a lot of money from her GameStop trades? Perhaps he is seeking to exert real influence over the brick-and-mortar retailer’s ongoing transformation by demanding a seat on the board?

On Thursday, stock trader extraordinaire, aka Keith Gill, posted an update to Reddit showing that he has made $58 million so far since first revealing his position at the company earlier this month.

But Gill’s loyal group of small GameStop shareholders, whose business selling physical copies of video games threatens to be crushed by the shift to cloud gaming, saw a hidden message.

A week ago, Gill was on the verge of becoming a billionaire on paper during his first livestream in three years, just a day before he turned 38.

GameStop Chairman and CEO Ryan Cohen foiled his plans that same day, flooding the market with 75 million newly issued shares – a 20% capital raise – to raise $2 billion, sending the company tumbling the actions.

In a joke, Gill later appeared on the stream with his right arm in a sling and a bandage wrapped around his head, laughing at the misfortune and drinking a beer to celebrate his birthday. But with his latest exchange, the prankster known for communicating through pop culture memes may have sent a very serious message to Cohen.

In a screenshot posted to Reddit, where he goes by the name DeepFu—ingValue, Gill finally revealed the answer to the biggest question everyone wanted to know: what would he do with the 120,000 call options that were to expire if not exercised by June. 21.

Judging from the evidence he wanted everyone to see, it appeared that Gill liquidated his entire position yesterday at the end of trading, liquidating 79,990 contracts while taking delivery of the remainder in stock.

However he did it, his holdings went from precisely 5 million shares, where they had been since the very first post on Reddit earlier this month, to 9,001,000 shares, no more. , no less.

Gamestop investors were quick to point out that this was no accident or coincidence. This seemingly random figure was exactly the number of shares GameStop CEO Cohen owned when he announced in an SEC filing in December 2020 that he had increased his stake in GameStop to 12.9%. .

A month later, Chewy’s co-founder was on the company’s board of directors. That year, George Sherman stepped down as CEO, and late last year, activist investor Cohen was named chairman and CEO.

Some think this oblique reference to Cohen could explain a meme Gill posted earlier this week from Office, in which the fictional Michael Scott wears a short-sleeved shirt with a kitten sticking out of the pocket. In it, a younger, awkward Scott meets his boss — potentially a sly homage to the chairman and CEO of GameStop (who is actually the same age as Gill).

While Gill may have owned the same number of shares as Cohen did at the time, he didn’t have the same influence. Indeed, the retailer has since conducted a 4-for-1 stock split as well as two recent market offerings that, combined, inflated outstanding shares by nearly 40%, or 120 million.

According to a filing this week, Cohen let his 12% stake from April be diluted to just 8.6% as of June 10. In comparison, Gill’s screenshot suggests he controls 2.1% of the shares.

GameStop is expected to hold its annual shareholder meeting on Friday. It was scheduled for yesterday, but was postponed early on due to technical difficulties.

The company did not respond to the request for Fortune for comment.