Gamestop preparing to make offer for Ebay
May 1 (Reuters) - GameStop is preparing to make an offer for eBAY, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Shares of eBay, which has a market capitalization of about $46 billion, were up about 9% in extended trading on Friday.
Shares of GameStop, which has a market capitalization of nearly $12 billion, were up about 3%.
84 comments
valueaddedresource
·5 months agoNow he's auctioning his own stuff on eBay to raise money to buy eBay and adding in a personal signed copy of the offer letter with purchase. 😂
wri-8727
·5 months agoAny publicly is good publicity (I'm assuming since I didn't watch the clip:)
gurlcat
·5 months agoHe compared eBay to Apple, so I guess that's good?
wri-8727
·5 months agoVery Nice
Very good
gurlcat
·5 months agoJimmy Kimmel Live last night (11:05)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87PEWsDisIc
valueaddedresource
·5 months agoNew interview with Ryan Cohen today - very obvious he likes these guys better than CNBC. 😂 But also some more details in here that will be interesting to sellers beyond just the financial aspects of the offer.
natoman777
·5 months agoThankfully looks like this ain't gonna happen 😌
Michael Burry sells GameStop after Ryan Cohen's hefty eBay bid
go-bad-chicken
·5 months agoYep I agree with you. This is not looking like its going to happen. Which is fine. EBay as a marketplace is better off without it. But my portfolio sure would have liked it
ryanflucas
·5 months agoI hope they buy eBay and make decent changes. It’s becoming so complicated to sell on here. Different fees for different categories. I’d love flat rate across the board. I shouldn’t need a calculator to decipher what I’m paying to sell an item.
eburtonlab
·5 months agoDifferent fees for different categories. I’d love flat rate across the board.
Not all categories are equally profitable, though.
And in some categories, the existence of competition (such as Reverb in the guitar categories) means that eBay's rates are tightly constrained, unless eBay wants to cede market share to other companies.
broto_64
·5 months agoThe sad of this all, if ebay could somehow simply fix some to most of the present errors and glitches they would absolutely increase their bottom line - Granted the traffic gain is one time (meaning it doesn't keep growing) but it's also permanent.
Long time ago when I was a webmaster, I came to that realization...
Simply fixing the site's HTML errors and making it all 100% WC3 compatible increased my traffic by 50%.
So if ebay gets a million visitors a day, they'd likely stand to gain a few hundred thousand just from that.
It boggles the mind that corporate entities can't see their way out of this paper bag.
wri-8727
·5 months agoJeff is more worried about China then eBay but can you imagine how stoked GameStop employees must be?
tools*
·5 months agoAmazon is 3-trillion-dollar company and eBay is a 46-billion-dollar company. Can eBay ever really expect to directly compete with Amazon?
wri-8727
·5 months agoIf some smart fella, or fella-ette, could figure out a way to beat 'the river's' uber-delivery system eBay could be a hundred billion dollar business; and a rising river raises all boats.
broto_64
·5 months agoNever underestimate the power of stupidity, in a rational world where people make logical decisions it would never happen but here on this planet?
Sadly it would be a really stupid decision if it went through.
Colossally stupid, of an epic magnitude.
Things would get a lot worse, they really would.
shado-x
·5 months agoIf eBay becomes an acquisition target, WMT, would be the clear front-runner. They have the logistics.
valueaddedresource
·5 months ago@shado-x not only that but since the perceived acquisition value seems largely focused on trading cards and collectibles, it's worth noting that Walmart poached a bunch of the eBay people who built the collectibles strategy that is now paying off.
Walmart has been making efforts to break into that category but getting the band back together by acquiring existing eBay infrastructure might fast track things.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·5 months agoSince Jamie became CEO and announced his overall strategy, I have felt that he was trying to create a sort of niche umbrella site----containing a number of different but profitable niches (trading cards, sneakers, luxury watches, etc) all in one site---and that his ultimate aim was to make it profitable enough that a site like WalMart would decide to buy it, so as to immediately add all those niches to its basic new, in season, retail business. If I've been right about that, Jamie might be fine with a takeover----but I doubt he was expecting the offer to come from GameStop, which will likely give him pause. Also, a site like WalMart , if they bought ebay, might do what ebay is intending to do with depop----make some changes to back end operations, but keep the site as its own entity. It sounds like Game Stop expects to essentially merge the two companies.
Of course, we can all speculate about this or that, but I don't intend to focus much on this. I don't own stock in either company, so this simply comes down to: ebay management or shareholders will decide, and we'll see what happens. I have zero influence over what will happen, the only immediate impact on my ebay business is the uncertainty provides more incentive to add more sales channels.
dhbookds
OP5 months agoCompete with Amazon? Ugh...... That amount of debt? we think we are being squeezed now on fees......just wait.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·5 months agofrom today's ebay press release:
eBay's Board of Directors, in consultation with its financial and legal advisors, will carefully review and consider the unsolicited proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interests of the company and all eBay shareholders. eBay shareholders are advised to take no action at this time.
The Board will review this proposal with a focus on the value to be delivered to eBay shareholders, including the value of the GameStop stock consideration and the ability of GameStop to deliver a binding, actionable proposal.
With 135 million buyers across 190 markets, eBay operates a global, scaled marketplace that requires disciplined execution, deep domain expertise, and ongoing investment in innovation. Indeed, the eBay Board and leadership team are executing a focused strategy to drive sustainable growth and long-term shareholder value. This strategy is delivering results as demonstrated by the company's full year 2025 results and recent first quarter 2026 earnings. eBay continues to deliver value for the millions of buyers and sellers on its platform.
Until the Board has further carefully and thoroughly considered the proposal, the company does not intend to comment further at this time.
natoman777
·5 months agoJust heard this now on radio. The desire is to make eBay a competitor with Amazon is what the news just said. That will utterly ruin eBay if it happens. Another site will have to be born for all of us who are NOT drop shippers or sellers selling brand new junk items
mattva
·5 months agoThat's what I'm thinking. The days of flea market eBay would dissappear.
grann-4629
·5 months agoThe days of flea market eBay would dissappear.
It already has - eBay is just a giant on-line mall now.
I am not a financial person in any sense. All of this talk about stocks and numbers ending in 'illion' hurts my brain. After the rich yahoos who own these companies decide to stop playing Monopoly and some kind of deal is made, will the eBay part still exist for buyers and sellers, or will we all have to go back to in-person shopping at the local mall?
natoman777
·5 months agoIt hasn't because of sellers like us we are just a couple making good money out of our home from items we source mainly from thrifting and yard sales
broto_64
·5 months agoThat is so sad, and is that what buyers really want?
I rather doubt it, sadder still it's not a battle anyone can truly win.
Certainly they'd take market share, but the OOAK ebay part of the market would indeed be ruined.
Yeah ebay's not just competing against Amazon here, Walmart has a strong position in all this too, sadly WMT is also full of duplicate listing dropshippers. I don't understand this madness, I really don't, it's like everyone is striving so hard to be exactly the same. Ok I digress, I understand wanting to copy success... But once again is a search results page of 100 identical items really what buyers want?
chapeau-noir
·5 months agoDidn't we go through that in the late oughts/early teens with Donohoe?
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·5 months ago@chapeau-noir It depends on just what he means...does he mean a competitor as in: selling similar items...new, in season stuff... which Jamie decided 5 years ago was a lost cause, and is the main reason why ebay no longer really competes with Amazon.
Or, does he mean a competitor as in : we can make the sort of mega dollars Amazon makes, but we can do it selling stuff Amazon doesn't really push.
Either one seems a little improbable.
chapeau-noir
·5 months agoLOL - both sound actually wildly improbable, but yeah, it may be the second thing he is thinking.
There's a lot that can be done to improve the platform itself, but it's all on the tech/design side. I'm not sure how he'd build out the logistics end of it, which is really all Amazon has over any other marketplace (AWS notwithstanding).
This is all academic to me, so I'm just curious as to what happens.
valueaddedresource
·5 months agoThis interview Ryan Cohen just did on CNBC is wild and awkward. 😂 Whatever we are in for here....get the popcorn. 🍿
allkindagoods
·5 months agoSo the WSJ is reporting that the big shortfall in $$$ needed to pull this acquisition off would perhaps come from Middle Eastern Sovereign Funds (i.e., big oil money).
These same investors recently pulled the plug on their huge investment in LIV Golf (since a major US television contract never took place). IS THIS SOMEHOW CONNECTED??
Offering GameStop stock as part of the deal does not appear to really "move the needle". But $125 a share is twice of what eBay traded for just a year ago. If real cash is placed on the bargaining table, it could be more of a possibility.
valueaddedresource
·5 months agoIt's now press release official:
https://investor.gamestop.com/news-releases/news-details/2026/GameStop-Proposes-to-Acquire-eBay-at-125-00-Per-Share/
$125.00 per share, comprising 50% cash & 50% GameStop common stock - ~$55.5 billion undiluted equity value. Cash & liquid investments ~$9.4 billion + $20 billion letter from TD Securities.
The GameStop letter calls out eBay for stalled buyer stats and inefficient spending under current leadership, saying they will deliver $2 billion of annualized cost reductions within twelve months of closing.
12345jamesstamps
·5 months ago'no salary, no cash bonuses, and no golden parachute'...kinda sounds nice but does that mean no company credit card(s) usage?...Probably not.
valueaddedresource
·5 months ago@12345jamesstamps not sure what you mean but doubt using company credit cards for personal expenses is part of his comp package.
Cohen co-founded Chewy, already has an estimated personal net worth of ~$5B and his current deal with GameStop could provide him with up to $35B, paid out in tranches, for hitting certain financial goals, including eventually turning GameStop into a $100B company - which like I said is likely how we got here.
So yeah, as crazy as it may sound, I don't have a problem believing he will continue with that deal if he becomes the CEO of a combined GameStop eBay entity.
go-bad-chicken
·5 months agoIf I could only strike the same deal with eBay.
go-bad-chicken
·5 months agoUnkike most of the commenters here, I personally would like to see this deal happen.
With that said i also own a decent amount of ebay stock. So im definitely biased.
shado-x
·5 months agoIt will be volatile, that's for sure. 123 a share would = 56 Billion market cap.
GME: 20 Billion non-committed loan from TD Bank (who sold their stake to Schwab), $9 Billion in cash, more than $4 Billion in debt, 5% equity in eBay stock (on margin), 500 Million in Bitcoin, and a ton of used 99 cent Nintendo DS cartridges in envelopes stuffed together that no one wants to buy in his stores-----and no conference calls or guidance when GME reports earnings. Yep, sure want that.
Not saying anything is bad with M&A. But the hostile shareholder threat will tank him. This isn't a Carl Icahn.
reallynicestamps
·5 months agoTD Bank? As in TDNorth the US subsidiary of Toronto Dominion Canada Trust ?
I do much of my banking there and this seems like a bad loan in the making. Back to the Royal Bank of Canada I guess.
kindsvater
·5 months agoAny examples of a highly debt leveraged takeover working, where there was no overlap between the companies allowing cost savings to pay the debt?
I don't see what Gamestop brings to the table where buying eBay creates a huge new income opportunity justifying this.
funfactorychannel
·5 months agoThey saved on listing fees🤣😂🤣
thelongball
·5 months agoGame Stop is on a short leash with Fanatics walking the dog. Could you imagine the final piece that Fanatics needs which would be eBay. Fanatics is becoming the Evil Empire.
theteamsetguy
·5 months ago@thelongball ,
Why do you think Fanatics is becoming the evil empire? I think Michael Rubin is a genius. He started with nothing and is now a billionaire.
thelongball
·5 months agoSo you enjoy the Higher prices for Unopened product, the being forced to sell clothing if you are a store owner, being told what hours you are open for business, being told what kind of showcases you need in your store, having to sign a contract agreeing to follow their rules. They eliminated being a breaker without their permission. How they know which cases contain the big hits. Putting all the competition out of business by being only one with a major league license. Consumers are getting fed up all over the place. Blaster box prices have more than doubled in past couple years. Retail stores have less and less product and when do have it, good luck getting anything good out of their boxes. There is a reason Monopolies are not supposed to be allowed. If not careful they will kill the golden goose.
tools*
·5 months agoAs a seller, would you want to continue to do business with a privately held, heavily leveraged, opaque eBay? (Not that publicly traded eBay has been much better over the last decade.)
valueaddedresource
·5 months ago@tools* GameStop is a publicly traded company. Nothing I have seen in reporting so far indicates any combined entity that would result from a deal here wouldn't also be a publicly traded company and considering the deal will likely include some stock along with the cash and debt, I don't see a scenario where it wouldn't continue to be public.
That being said, I agree with you that the heavily leveraged part is concerning as far as what this would mean for sellers.
valueaddedresource
·5 months agoWell I said call me when someone is willing to go on record and apparently that call just came in. 😲
Ryan Cohen says he has 5% stake & commitment from TD Bank for $20B in debt, will make offer for $125/sh, or $56 billion.
https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/gamestop-is-offering-to-buy-ebay-for-56-billion-ceo-ryan-cohen-says-fd330f5a
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·5 months ago@valueaddedresource
Well, THIS will be interesting.....
funfactorychannel
·5 months agoBy saying they make eBay a bigger competitor already makes this a fail. Amazon is a different entity these days.
And if they only focus on the online physical marketplace, then they already fail unless they want to invest in the logistic delivery, or have a eBay rep actually negoiate or pass the USPS savings to ebay sellers.
jdbelt1960
·5 months agoGamestop is well known for making splash announcements to pump up their stock value.
go-bad-chicken
·5 months agoThis is a fairly good article regarding the deal.
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/gamestop-is-preparing-offer-for-ebay-wsj-reports-212703319.html
valueaddedresource
·5 months agoMost of the commentary I'm seeing elsewhere seems to be hyper-focused on the "how" of the financials and honestly, I'm still trying to figure out the "why."
There's the obvious collectibles piece that absolutely does make sense - and that's where current commentary seems to begin and end.
But it seems like a lot of people are forgetting there's a lot more to eBay than that - for example Motors & Fashion are both $10B+ categories on the site, not to mention all the other parts that make up the whole.
That's where the "synergies" story falls apart for me. If GameStop had said they were buying a $10B+ cars and parts/accessories marketplace or a $10B+ used fashion marketplace separately, I have to believe the market reaction would be very different and it seems like a pretty big red flag to me that almost no one is talking about the bigger picture outside of the collectibles play.
Even if GameStop can figure out the financial "how", I'm not convinced the "why" is strong enough to make a deal for the whole thing make sense - and it makes even less sense for eBay, imo.
Monday should be interesting either way though. 😂
funfactorychannel
·5 months agoThere does need to be synergy for to buy out a company. Sometimes its just for the money..
My Naked Brand shares got converted to a Electric Vehicle company to stay listed. I went from investing into bras to a EV car.. both sucked 😄
chrispass918
·5 months agoGameStop can’t buy s**t, all of their stores are going out of business.
m60driver
·5 months agoBig time contrarian investor Michael Burry (of The Big Short fame) has been buying GameStop shares. GameStop is sitting on a load of cash that is looking for an investment opportunity that could reimagine the company. The issue for us sellers is that a purchase of Ebay would involve a great deal of debt. And that debt would need to be paid off and one guaranteed method would be raise fees for sellers, and probably institute fees for buyers as well.
meme6253
·5 months agoThey may be mulling over the idea to do that, But I really doubt that it will ever happen.
deltilogical
·5 months agoSears was destroyed on purpose. There is a lot of money to be made in destroying companies.
broto_64
·5 months agoEddie Lampert.
I normally don't hijack threads, but this one's too much for me to resist. I'm 59 years old and Sears was a huge part of me growing up, with the catalogs and all that jazz... The story and having to watch what happened to this former icon of America used to bring me near to tears.
So, here's what happened:
lawnmowerpartsstore2
·5 months agoWell on the other hand did anyone think Kmart would have bought out Sears 🤔
greatstuff80
·5 months agoand destroyed it.
valueaddedresource
·5 months agoI've been hearing this rumor since January - and even then believed it was highly unlikely and the math didn't work out.
Then it was posted about here in the community in March, my take was eBay announcing they are acquiring Depop for $1.2B made it even less likely.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/ebay-to-be-acquired/m-p/35509170/highlight/true#M2670951
At face value, the collectibles piece makes sense, but a lot of other things don't. And remember, like shopping on eBay - just because someone can make an offer doesn’t mean it will be accepted. 😉
For those who weren't able to read the paywalled WSJ article today, it's important to note they were apparently unable to get anyone to go on record, simply citing "people familiar with the matter."
The after market close on a Friday timing doesn't enhance the credibility either and just increases the odds those "people" stand to gain financially from the price pop whether there's ultimately anything to it, imo.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but with eBay’s market cap at approximately $44.98 billion compared to GameStop at approximately $11.89 billion - any path forward would be challenging at best.
Bottom line for me personally: call me when someone is willing to go on record. 🤣
wri-8727
·5 months agoNo betting yet
https://x.com/Polymarket/status/2050341056324014379
slati_2013
·5 months ago"Never sleep with someone whose troubles are worse than your own."
wri-8727
·5 months agoReddit vs. Wall Street
https://www.theverge.com/business/922634/gamestop-ebay-rumor-ryan-cohen
Is the stock market in trouble?
a_c_green
·5 months agoMore likely someone wants to unload some unwisely-purchased GameStop stock and figures this might pump up the price just long enough for them to bail.
shado-x
·5 months agoYes, much like UAL's Scott Kirby tried with AAL (American Airlines) simply to bump the stocks when USO was surging (and still is), we knew where that was going.
kibble-net
·5 months agoDid April Fool's Day arrive a month late this year?
ten_o_nine
·5 months agoI am also preparing an offer but for an eBay buyer, it's $5 for the whole lot with 4 shipping options and one of them is free shipping, just working on the final details of financing options.😄
allkindagoods
·5 months agoIF this was ever to happen, the new company will have to raise fees substantially to pay for the purchase that they went way over their heads to consummate.
Sellers would then leave in droves for greener pastures, and the site would flatline. As always, an eCommerce (or any other retail) company cannot survive without merchandise available for sale.
Game Stop is not new to the artificial hype (AH?) game, and this seems to be another attempt to falsely create a buzz.
usa_biker_goods
·5 months agoEbay's board can reject the offer, but if they do the CEO of Gamestop can take the offer directly to Ebay's shareholders and remove the decision altogether from the board. Don't say it will never happen, because if it goes to shareholders and they can walk away with a boatload of money or stocks with a completed deal, don't doubt the shareholders may want to pursue that money. You see activist investors make these kinds of moves all the time and a sale happens more often than you may think. Never say never. My concern as a seller if a sale happens the new company will be loaded with a a ton of debt from a smaller company taking over a much bigger company and guess where they are going to look first to start trying to dig out of debt? They will start hitting us sellers with higher fees across the board for everything as well as cutting back big time on support services for sellers and go full on AI in that area basically turning into an Amazon "milk the seller as mush as possible, while cutting costs as much as possible" approach to earnings.
cardsforauction
·5 months agoI agree. This is bad for eBay sellers. If it happens, it happens, but there will be higher seller fees and eBay will turn into something else, like the Big "A" rain forest site. I prefer the way it is, but we will see. My impression, there will higher fees, cuts across the board, and job loss at eBay.
orderitused
·5 months agoI have friends that own more shares of eBay than Gamestop does, I can tell you right now, its not going to happen.
onefootflipper
·5 months agoNever going to happen. Gamestop would have to pay a premium to current share prices to do so and ebay is already worth 4 times what they are worth.
Also, I don't think the ebay board would approve it, nor do I think the shareholders would either.
Gamestop only still exists as a company from riding a meme investor wave into a period of time where the Pokemon company has been purposely underprinting to drive popularity and get billions in free advertisement (they have done it a few times before).
It is only a matter of time until every remaining gamestop location starts losing money. This happens once the Pokemon market returns to normal or crashes (it has crashed before), or the next generation of consoles comes out with almost no physical game releases. The percentage of their profit console makers are getting from disc based games is already in the low single digits. No new games getting traded into the store means the entire business model breaks down and Pokemon cannot pay the bills on a franchise that large when there are also dedicated card stores everywhere.
Basically, gamestop's existing business would be a boat anchor around the neck of ebay. They bring literally nothing to the table at all in the long term. And I can't think of a single retailer with 2000+ stores has ever successfully changed into an entirely different business. It would be like Dollar General trying to pivot into being a furniture store.
evsurr0
·5 months agoMakes me wonder if Gamestop would end up on Ebay's own bbl depending on the offer?
evsurr0
·5 months agoThe day that goes through, will be the same day Dollar General buys Disney
exibar
·5 months agoit's going through. $56Billion deal, 10% premium.... Old Jamie would be foolish to pass that deal up... ebay shares are already hitting highest ever amounts.
Mike B
tobaccocardyahoo
·5 months agoWhy does that make me want to throw up?
dirk12955
·5 months agoCan a 12B corporation buy a 46B corporation?
theteamsetguy
·5 months ago@dirk12955 ,
Theoretically yes, but in reality not very often. GameStop would have to offer a pretty big premium to buy eBay in a hostile takeover. Most likely GameStop would have offer 55 to 60 billion or more to get the job done.
They would probably have to do a leveraged buyout and take on a bunch of debt which would not be good. That debt needs to be serviced. FVF’s would probably go up in order to service the new debt. I doubt the eBay board of directors or shareholders would approve a deal. I would vote no.
luckythewinner
·5 months agoThey can if someone lends them the money.
shado-x
·5 months agoWe know eBay doesn't want to acquire GME.
usa_biker_goods
·5 months agoGamestop is looking to buy Ebay. Not Ebay looking to buy gamestop.
shado-x
·5 months agoYou just figured that out?
funfactorychannel
·5 months agothat wouldnt help gamestop.
They will get so many defects selling open games as New.
usa_biker_goods
·5 months agoThey aren't making an offer to sell games on Ebay. They are making an offer to buy Ebay. They have been loading up on shares of Ebay over the years and now have anough shares in Ebay they feel comfortable in making an offer to buy Ebay.
funfactorychannel
·5 months agoit a joke, as Gamestop is notorious in selling an open game as new because they were the only ones who opened it.