It’s easy to see why GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen wants to get his hands on eBay so much that the company is offering $56 billion to buy the e-commerce player at a 20% premium.
Cohen made the unsolicited offer for eBay, which is multiple times larger than GameStop by both revenue and market capitalization, over the weekend and told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that a GameStop-eBay tie-up could turn eBay, into “something worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”
His view that eBay is an underperformer is one that many on Wall Street held for years but one that eBay’s strong financial performance and stock increase in the last year challenges.
EBay was founded as an online auction site by billionaire Pierre Omidyar in 1995, the same year as Amazon, but it largely failed to keep pace with its rival. By 2020, it had fallen behind Walmart as the second largest e-commerce site in the world. The pandemic was good for eBay’s business for a time as more people stuck at home supplemented their income by selling items from their attics. Even so, many on Wall Street saw eBay as a tired company, with a clunky site selling a garage-like hodgepodge of items.
Jamie Iannone, a former Walmart and Barnes & Noble executive, was named eBay CEO in April 2020, and tasked to change that view. In recent years, eBay has focused more closely on collectibles, like sports memorabilia, trading cards, coins and antiques, as well as true fashion finds that attract enthusiasts who will visit the site more often and shop. In February, eBay said it was buying the secondhand-fashion platform Depop from Etsy for $1.2 billion, a move meant to attract more young shoppers and vintage ethusiasts, and to bolster its fashion cred.
EBay has also invested in tech: it recently introduced an AI-powered feature called “magical listings,” which allows sellers to take a photo of an item, which the platform’s AI then uses to fill in details such as a suggested price. Via Goldin, a company it owns, eBay also dipped its toes into the exploding market for Pokémon cards.
So far, eBay has the numbers to claim its turnaround is working. Last quarter, revenue climbed 19% to $3.09 billion, while profit rose along with gross merchandise value (GMV is the value of what is sold on its site.) EBay shares were up 50% in the last year before news of the offer, reflecting Wall Street’s belief that Iannone’s plan is working.
Cohen told the WSJ he saw plenty of synergies between GameStop and eBay, given their common focus on collectibles, and suggested GameStop stores could serve as authentication centers for items bought on eBay, among other advantages. He also sees potential for eBay to succeed in live commerce, where consumers buy items via a live stream.
Since becoming CEO in 2023, Cohen, who first made his name as a founder of Chewy, has improved GameStop’s profitability by closing hundreds of stores and focusing on trading cards and other collectibles. GameStop, of course, became one of the most famous meme stocks in 2021, when retail traders piled into its shares and briefly turned the struggling video game retailer into a symbol of Wall Street rebellion. Cohen began investing in GameStop before the 2021 meme-stock frenzy peaked, and had joined the board that January.
EBay shares rose on news this weekend of GameStop’s bid, to $110—still below the $125 Cohen said he was offering, reflecting the market’s doubts about the deal happening. Cohen said GameStop already owned 5% of eBay, which is six times larger by stock market value. EBay has $9 billion in cash lined up and another $20 billion in debt financing from a commitment letter from TD Bank, all of which doesn’t come near the $56 billion Cohen is offering. GameStop did not immediately respond to a request for more details on the financing of this offer. EBay said in a press release it would review the offer and consider “the ability of GameStop to deliver a binding, actionable proposal.”
Some analysts think it may be best for eBay if a deal doesn’t happen. “Why disrupt things? The turnaround is working,” Bernstein analysts wrote of the company in a note to clients, while also noting they see “real challenges” in structuring the deal Cohen proposes.
