https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ed-man-jumped-death-18th-floor-NYC-tower.html Bed Bath & Beyond, a company that has been going through struggles of late due to high inflation and a sagging economy. The company announced plans to close 150 stores, of its roughly 900, and lay off 20 percent. Its CFO Jumped to his death from the 18th floor of a Manhattan high rise building. He reportedly sold over 42,000 shares in the company, or $1million just over two weeks ago, according to MarketBeat.com. At the time, he still owned 267,896 shares in the company, valued at just under $6.5million.
Was reading that this morning. In a slight twist of irony, I bought the first thing from bed bath and beyond (online) in years last week. RIP
It's weird, a company having to do restructuring should not be a reason for suicide. Might be something else at play here?
Yeah, I texted that to a friend earlier this morning. The stock itself is basically a meme stock that takes wild swings and the company is in financial trouble, but there has to be more to this. If anybody should be jumping off buildings it should be A Aron (Adam Aron) CEO of AMC with what he's had to go through trying to keep that company afloat. Although that dude knows how to sucker meme fanboys into his stock. lol.
https://fortune.com/2022/09/04/bed-bath-beyond-cfo-arnal-lawsuit-pump-and-dump-scheme/ A Bed Bath & Beyond executive who plunged to his death on Friday stood accused in a lawsuit—along with activist investor Ryan Cohen—of participating in a “pump and dump” scheme to artificially inflate the company’s value. The class-action lawsuit, filed on Aug. 23—11 days before Arnal’s death—in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia lists the lead plaintiff as Pengcheng Si. The company said it was “in the early stages of evaluating the complaint, but based on current knowledge the company believes the claims are without merit,” according to Reuters. The lawsuit alleges Cohen approached Arnal about a plan to control shares of the company so they could both profit. Bed Bath & Beyond shares have been considered a meme stock in recent months, with a highly volatile price driven in no small part by social media sentiment. “With control over a significant portion of the public float, Cohen would essentially act as a price support for the stock while Gustavo would act in a similar capacity by controlling the sale of shares by Insiders,” the lawsuit states, according to Fox Business. “Under this arrangement, defendants would profit handsomely from the rise in price and could coordinate their selling of shares to optimize their returns.” Arnal sold just over 55,000 shares in the company over a few days last month for about $1.4 million, but he still had nearly 255,400 remaining, according to Reuters. As Fortune reported earlier, Cohen bought millions of shares in the company—raising hopes among retail investors he would help turn the retailer around—before completely withdrawing his position last month.
Interesting.... I remember the BB&B pump for the Cohen investment, and then I think it collapsed when he dumped his position not long after. Can't wait to see what becomes of this fiasco.
The crazies on Reddit are already making conspiracy theories about the hedgies trying to keep the super squeeze from sqozing and to defame Ryan Cohen.
BB&B killed themselves when they changed their return policy. It became a store with overpriced items that could be found cheaper elsewhere. I was willing to pay more for the return policy. After the change, never stepped in a BB&B again.
The other annoying thing is that they use this old coupon driven sales model that is entirely obsolete. JC Penney has a similar problem. They operate on business models that no longer work. With that said, here in Canada, these types of businesses still thrive because Amazon sucks here and Target flamed out and left the country. The local mall by my house still has a Toys R Us and a Radio Shack.
