People who own shares in GameStop Corp. asked about the company’s recent $2.14 billion stock sale and the future of the video game store at an annual meeting on Monday that was mostly uneventful and ended in less than 20 minutes.
The company repeated what it had already said about its plans to cut costs and its strong balance sheet, but it didn’t say anything new about how it plans to grow in the future.
CEO Ryan Cohen said that his goal is to build a “smaller network of stores.” He also said that the company’s strong balance sheet gives it a strategic edge.
There are no promises to be made here. He said, “We’re here to work.”
Monday, GameStop’s stock GME, -12.13% dropped 12.1%.
Shareholders sent questions to GameStop General Counsel Mark Robinson during the question-and-answer session, which lasted about 10 minutes. Robinson gave short answers.
Robinson said that the company’s corporate-governance committee would continue to be in charge of making decisions about who would be on the GameStop board when asked about that.
He said that the company did raise $2.14 billion last week through an offering of shares, but he didn’t say anything else.
People who own stock in the company through direct ownership with ComputerShare are also still supported by GameStop.
Shareholders voted on four issues, and all of their votes were in line with what the board suggested.
Shareholders agreed with the board’s make-up, the salaries listed in the proxy statement, and the choice of Deloitte & Touche as the company’s independent registered public accounting firm.
The New York City Comptroller’s Office, which is an institutional shareholder, wanted board members to list their race, gender, and job skills, but shareholders said no to the plan. This was something the company had told them not to do.
The original date of the meeting was June 13, but GameStop had to move it because “unprecedented” demand meant that many shareholders couldn’t get through to the webcast, which meant the meeting had to end.
People were interested in the meeting because GameStop shares had been going up and down since influential trader Keith Gill, also known as Roaring Kitty, returned to social media.
Cohen hasn’t been seen much lately, even though meme stocks have been going up, which makes the shareholder meeting even more interesting.
GameStop’s fiscal first-quarter sales were $881.8 million, down from $1.237 billion, as reported on June 7. In the first quarter, the cost of sales dropped sharply from $949.8 million in the previous quarter to $637.3 million.
The business said in March 2023 that it was going to cut costs going forward.
At the time, GameStop said, “We have a lot of hard work and actions that need to be taken.”
Gill played a big role in the meme-stock craze of 2021, which sent shares of GameStop and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. AMC, -2.00% through the roof. Since Gill came back to social media last month, meme stocks have been going up. Shares of GameStop, AMC, and other stocks have also been going up.
GameStop stock had its worst day since 2021 on June 7, when Gill did his first livestream on YouTube in three years. Another time, the trader talked about how he thought Cohen could help the company do well.
With a $2.14 billion offering, GameStop got into the market when people became interested again.
Last week, Citron Research said that it is no longer short GameStop. “It’s not because we think the company will ever turn around fundamentally, but they have $4 billion in the bank, so they have enough time to please their cult-like shareholders,” Citron Research wrote on X, which used to be Twitter.
GameStop’s stock went up on Friday after Gill said late Thursday that he had sold some of his 120,000 call options that were set to expire on June 21 and bought another 4,001,000 shares of the company. This brought his total position in the company up from 5,000,000 shares earlier in the week to 9,001,000 shares.
A screenshot from Gill’s E-Trade account that he shared on Reddit shows that his position was worth more than $262 million at the end of the trading day on Thursday.
The S&P 500 SPX has gone up 14.8% so far this year, while GameStop’s stock has gone up 44%.
