K A L E O
Crypto Market Analyst, Co-Founder of LedgArt, Public Investing Journal
GameStop is a short because its CEO plans to raise tens of billions of dollars to complete the $56B eBay offer, massively diluting shareholders. The narrative has flipped from the little guy squeezing hedge funds to insiders using retail as exit liquidity to hit comp packages. $5 is a fitting target, though the market cap may well hold up. x.com x.com x.com x.com x.com
GameStop shareholders face about 70% dilution to fund CEO Ryan Cohen's $56 billion offer to buy eBay, with no short squeeze coming. A year ago Cohen was hyping Bitcoin purchases, which raises doubts about whether he knows what he is doing. After that interview, a GameStop shareholder should sell every last share. x.com x.com x.com x.com
GameStop shareholders are likely to be diluted to fill a funding gap of more than $10B. Its CEO implied as much in an interview without saying it outright, which is most likely why the stock reversed course. x.com
GameStop's $56 billion, $125-a-share bid for eBay could unlock over $100 billion of value by turning eBay from a stagnant auction site into a true Amazon rival under Ryan Cohen. Synergies span collectibles, trading cards, live commerce and store pickups, plus cost cuts and AI upgrades. Cohen's track record stands out, and the absence of any Wall Street buy rating on GameStop is a strong contrarian buy signal. x.com
eBay looks overpriced at $116.50 against GameStop's takeover math, making a short cheap convexity. GameStop's original $125 offer, half cash and half stock, now implies about $116-117 after GameStop's roughly 15% drop, while a rational 10% arb spread would need a $129-130 bid. Funding that with GameStop stock needs about 20% more or heavy leverage. eBay is not a pretty asset and hardly the tip of the spear in new commerce; a higher bidder is the risk. x.com x.com
GameStop lacks the money for its eBay bid, and Ryan Cohen's interview suggests he is using retail investors as exit liquidity. The proposal offers $125 per eBay share, half cash and half GameStop stock, valuing eBay equity at $55.5 billion, with a TD Securities letter for up to $20 billion of financing. The interview sent GameStop shares lower. x.com
GameStop's Ryan Cohen is making one of the most aggressive streaks of insider purchases relative to market cap over such a short period. He bought another 700,000 shares at an average $24.41, about $17.1M, per an SEC Form 4 reported by @ReesePolitics, a show of conviction that ignores rising yields. x.com
A GameStop bid for eBay looks unworkable, so both stocks should fade. GameStop would need to issue about 1 billion shares, wipe out its treasury and take on heavy debt, making Elon Musk's Twitter deal look easy. The deal probably never happens, and if a real offer is made, GameStop has no chance of trading up. x.com
GameStop's eBay bid looks unlikely to get funded, because Ryan Cohen only gets the $20 billion of financing if the deal stays investment grade, which is not likely. Per @Stonkfather2021, buying 51% of eBay would take about $28.4 billion, covered by GameStop's $9.5 billion+ and TD Securities' $20 billion. x.com
GameStop looks like a reasonable bet despite misgivings about CEO Ryan Cohen, because it holds a ton of cash and is not buying eBay. x.com
eBay's 18.5x multiple rests on earnings that look unsustainable. That valuation is well above most internet and retail peers despite no acceleration in fundamentals, while the trading-card-game tailwind is in its later innings. Rotational flows are the only apparent obstacle to shorting it. x.com x.com
