GameStop says CEO 'has been terminated' as revenue falls and stock price plunges

pcgamer.com:

Stock in GameStop (GME) has been on a precipitous decline in the last 24 hours, after the troubled retailer announced worse-than-expected quarterly results alongside the surprise termination of CEO Matthew Furlong. GameStop does not have a replacement, though the company's largest investor Ryan Cohen has been named executive chairman. Following these announcements GameStop skipped the standard quarterly earnings call with investors.

All of which has clearly not inspired confidence in whatever's going on over there. The quarterly results showed a loss in the first fiscal quarter of $50.5 million, or 17 cents per share, though an equally troubling element was that sales had fallen year-on-year by 11% to $1.24 billion. The stock has lost around 20% of its value since these announcements, and is now worth about a quarter of what it was during the meme stock surge of early 2021.

GameStop's press release announcing the departure of Furlong was an exercise in ice-cold corporate brevity. The release reads:

"[GameStop] today disclosed that its Board of Directors has elected Ryan Cohen as Executive Chairman, effective immediately. Mr. Cohen’s responsibilities include capital allocation and overseeing management.

«In conjunction, the Company’s former CEO has been terminated».

Furlong will at least be able to console himself with a big payout. In a separate filing (thanks, MarketWatch), GameStop said Furlong was fired without cause, and is due any unvested stock that would have vested in the next six months. Furlong would have been eligible for $2.5 million in stock in August, though who knows how much that will be worth by the time he gets it, and will also receive his $100,000 base salary.

The background to all of this is the wild