Can GameStop Really Buy eBay?
5/8/202622 min
GameStop has made an unsolicited offer to buy eBay for about $56 billion. The proposed deal, which eBay says it is reviewing, is the brainchild of GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen. In an interview with WSJ’s Lauren Thomas, Cohen said that putting his videogame retailer and eBay under one roof could create opportunities to cut costs and improve earnings. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: - To the Moon: How did a bunch of amateurs take Wall Street by surprise? Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsLauren Thomas· Guest0:00
[upbeat music] My name is Lauren Thomas, and I am a deals and activism reporter here at the Wall Street Journal.
Jessica Mendoza· Host0:12
And Lauren, we're talking to you because there was a proposed merger and acquisition, proposed deal, that caught a lot of people's eyes recently. Can you tell us what that is?
Lauren Thomas· Guest0:22
Yes. Big headline number for sure. GameStop officially submitted a proposal, a $56 billion proposal, to acquire eBay.
Jessica Mendoza· Host0:32
[upbeat music] GameStop, which is worth about $11 billion, was offering to buy a company four times that size, eBay, the commerce giant. What did you think when you heard that?
Lauren Thomas· Guest0:44
Yeah, I mean, probably like everyone else, was scratching my head a little bit. You don't often see these smaller companies coming out and, and trying to buy much larger businesses. So that in and of itself I think provides some shock value.
Jessica Mendoza· Host0:57
So Lauren called the man behind this audacious plan, Ryan Cohen, the CEO of GameStop.
Lauren Thomas· Guest1:03
Walk through like what, what ultimately led you to eBay?
Ryan Cohen· Soundbite1:07
I think that eBay under my watch, uh, it, it really comes down to, like, scale- Yeah ... being able to do something big.
Lauren Thomas· Guest1:16
Right.
Ryan Cohen· Soundbite1:17
And I think eBay, like I... There's nobody who is more qualified based on my experience to run the eBay business. I could, I could turn