All of GameStop’s nearly $1 billion in cash is now at Ryan Cohen’s unilateral discretion.
RC can now use GameStop’s money to buy stocks of other companies, which may or may not involve any mergers or acquisitions.
What is really interesting and exciting about this, to me, is that it puts “our” money into his hands. It’s our money because we are GME investors, and shareholders are the owners of companies, and GameStop’s money is part of the shareholder equity that belongs to shareholders.
Ryan Cohen has a vision and a strategy, and access to valuable information, and he does not telegraph his strategy to the competition. We don’t know specifically what his intentions are, we don’t know specifically what his strategies are.
What we do know is that our interests are in alignment.
We shareholders are in alignment with the RCEO because he is also a (major) shareholder. If RC makes a move that benefits GameStop, it benefits all GME shareholders including himself and us.
If RC takes a strategic investment opportunity, we are all going along for the ride.
This is pretty great, in my opinion, because assuming that you trust RC, it means all a person needs to do is hold GME, and they will get exposure to whatever strategic investments that RC might make. As for me, I trust that RC has a better capability than myself to wisely invest in any non-GME assets.
Also, it’s pretty funny to me how some financial incumbents find this news to be “alarming”. It’s alarming to them, it scares them. It scares them because they already decided that GameStop is bad and Ryan Cohen is bad, but now Ryan Cohen has even more concentrated control to support his ability to execute his strategy.
I’ve now seen on multiple occasions, the sort of FUDdy counter narrative: now Ryan Cohen has the ability to buy assets that aren’t GME. If he had any faith in his company, he would simply use that money to do a GME share buyback.
What a giveaway.
These opponents want RC to do a GME share buy back. Almost as if, this would be a strategically poor move for GameStop at this time but a good move for GameStop’s opponents. Discussed here is why, as of this time, it would not be a good decision to do a share buyback. The only scenario in which that would actually be a good idea would be if the price of GME tanked very low. Better to hold on to that buyback money as an insurance policy, just in case the share price ever does get tanked. In that case, the waiting cash for the buyback covers the problem.
In the mean time, at current GME prices, there are probably other undervalued opportunities that RC has his sights on, and this is scary to anyone that opposes GameStop’s success.