GameStop (GME): Ryan Cohen’s $96 million of buying, a $4.9 billion eBay stake, and a rejected offer

GameStop closed at $26.56 on October 9, 2026, its highest close in twelve months and 48.6% above its low of $17.87 on August 28. With 504.5 million shares outstanding on September 3, the company was worth about $13.4 billion. Chairman and chief executive Ryan Cohen bought GameStop stock on the open market on six days this year, the last on October 2.

Cohen’s 4.3 million shares cost $95.8 million, an average of $22.27 a share; at the October 9 close they were worth $114.2 million. His Form 4 after the October 2 purchase shows 41.6 million shares, about 8.3% of the shares outstanding. Four directors also bought: Lawrence Cheng 60,000 shares, Alain Attal 46,500, Nat Turner 10,462 and James Grube 10,255. On the other side, the twelve months show only small sales by two officers, mostly shares sold to cover taxes on vesting stock plus about $0.5 million of other sales by the general counsel.

The eBay proposal

On May 3, 2026, GameStop sent eBay a non-binding proposal to buy all of it for $125.00 a share in cash and GameStop stock. eBay said it had had no discussions with GameStop before receiving it, and on May 12 its board rejected the proposal, writing to Cohen that it was “neither credible nor attractive.” GameStop kept building a stake: by July 15 it owned 43.4 million eBay shares, 9.8% of the company, worth $4.9 billion on August 1. eBay closed at $112.19 on October 9. The filings since then show no new proposal.

In January the board had granted Cohen a performance-based option award, subject to a shareholder vote. On June 23 GameStop withdrew it from the proxy statement at his request, saying that when the award was approved the company had not yet decided to pursue eBay and that Cohen wanted leadership “fully focused” on GameStop’s operations and the proposed acquisition.

The second quarter

In the quarter ended August 1, 2026, net sales fell to $790.2 million from $972.2 million, which the company attributes to the prior-year launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, planned store closures and the sale of its French operations. Collectibles grew 57% to $356.3 million, 45.1% of sales. Operating income was $160.2 million, the company says the highest for a second quarter in its history. Net income of $298.7 million included about $238 million of gains on the eBay position and a loss of about $75 million on digital assets. GameStop now expects adjusted EBITDA above $650 million for the fiscal year ending in January 2027.

At August 1 the company held $5.1 billion of cash and marketable securities, $0.3 billion of digital assets — it bought 4,710 bitcoin for $500 million in 2025 — and the $4.9 billion eBay stake. On September 3 it retired about $1.4 billion of its zero-coupon convertible notes in exchange for about 55.5 million new shares and $358.4 million in cash, leaving about $2.8 billion of long-term debt. In July, shareholders approved raising the number of authorized shares to 2.5 billion.

Insider purchases are one signal among many: the filings do not say why anyone bought. The GameStop page has the daily data and every Form 4, and the insiders page lists the largest purchases across the market. Not investment advice.