Chewy founder Ryan Cohen has achieved a cult-like following in the meme-stock community for his efforts to save the video-game merchandiser GameStop, a frequent target of short-sellers that had soared to massive heights as it defied smart-money expectations to stay out of bankruptcy. And yet Cohen has one of the lowest public profiles in corporate America outside of an occasional obtuse social-media posting.
That might be changing. On The Money has learned that GameStop reps have been shopping for a publicist whose main job will be to enhance Cohen’s profile in the media, and presumably sell the GameStop growth story, which has petered out of late.
The frenzy around the trading of GameStop (listed under the symbol GME), you might recall, was made famous in the movie “Dumb Money,” starring Paul Dano as the meme icon Keith Gill, the so-called “Roaring Kitty,” then a mid-level financial services executive who began pumping the stock on social media during the COVID lockdown.
In the somewhat fictionalized account of the meme-stock phenomenon, high-rolling hedge fund traders who were ‘shorting” the company, betting it would implode implode, got rolled by Gill and his legions of small-time investors who threw their money at the company and “squeezed the shorts” – all in an effort to save the company.
When shares spiked in early 2021 to as high as $80 after trading as low as 95 cents just months earlier, the shorts at major hedge funds suffered massive losses. One, in fact, closed down.
The meme craze saved the company and Cohen’s investment. He had been in the stock since 2020. He then began increasing his position and eventually became GameStop’s CEO. The company’s prospects are still pretty lackluster; GME sells video games in malls, and people prefer to buy this stuff online.
But Cohen has used meme mania to dilute shareholders. GME is now sitting on nearly $5 billion in cash even if its shares are down 60% from its peak in January 2021.
For those who don’t know him, Cohen is somewhat of an oddity in the CEO space. He has an estimated net worth of about $4 billion, largely from his sale of Chewy, an e-commerce pet supply company, to PetSmart in 2017. Yet I don’t recall a single instance of him appearing on financial TV, seemingly content on allowing his status as a meme cult leader to do the talking with shareholders.
But relying on meme mania has its limits, many analysts tell me, and maybe Cohen is starting to agree. One potential candidate for the GME PR gig tells On The Money that the job will entail mainly getting Cohen on podcasts to heighten his profile and possibly that of the company.
“They say they don’t want to do traditional financial TV just yet, but want to focus on podcasts,” this person said.
One reason: maybe that’s where they see more retail buyers of the stock since large investors don’t see the long-term value in a company that sells video games in malls.
A press rep for GME and Cohen didn’t return calls and emails for comment.