GameStop has made an offer to acquire eBay for $56 billion, which comes as part of GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen’s plan to transform the online marketplace into a “legit competitor to Amazon,” he tells The Wall Street Journal. In an announcement on Monday, eBay says it will “carefully review” the unsolicited proposal, adding that it had “no discussions with or outreach from GameStop” before receiving the bid.
GameStop says it will fund the acquisition using $9.4 billion on the company’s balance sheet and third-party financing, including up to $20 billion from TD Securities. As noted by the WSJ, the company doesn’t say how it will fund the rest of the acquisition, but sources tell the outlet that “Cohen could tap outside investors, such as Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds, to back the deal.” The WSJ reports that Cohen is ready to launch a proxy fight to acquire eBay if the company doesn’t accept its offer.
Cohen has a pretty big incentive to grow GameStop, which was at the center of the memestock craze in 2021. Under his new compensation package, Cohen could make as much as $35 billion if the company meets certain financial goals, such as reaching a market capitalization of $100 billion, as reported by the WSJ. “eBay should be worth — and will be worth — a lot more money,” Cohen told the WSJ. “I’m thinking about turning eBay into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”