GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay • Hacker News Board

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#441

Post by Forgeties79 » Mon, May 04, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

solumunus wrote: post #417

Forgeties79 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and it was 1) incredibly notable, 2) 13 years ago, 3) in another country, and 4) following one of their worst performing products ever. Iwata's (maybe voluntary) temporary pay cut was big news because of how exceptional it was.

Ryan Cohen doesn’t even take a salary. I guess that’s extremely notable then?

As of a few months ago yes he does not take a salary anymore and he has actual skin in the game that could pay off in the tens of billions.

Taking $0 is unusual but not unheard of (Musk I think does this too) and it’s very common for CEO’s to make $1mill (or even less) and have like…80%+ of their compensation tied to performance metrics/stock options. There are a lot of caveats to saying “he takes no salary.”

It sounds nice on paper but he isn’t really doing something revolutionary here. He also has rather ambitious numbers to hit if what I’m reading is accurate, so it makes sense he’s taking massive swings like this. We’ll see if it happens, let alone pays off.

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#442

Post by charcircuit » Mon, May 04, 2026, 5:28 PM UTC

delfinom wrote: post #435

hnav wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's friction though, if the process is under one roof end-to-end, ebay can take 30-40% (15-20% today) of every transaction by just letting you dump your old stuff. Might even eat FB marketplace and CL.

People trying to sell their used junk aren't going to accept a 30-40% cut. It's why they aren't using eBay these days in the first place.

People regularly give businesses >50% cut to get cash immediately and this isn't even counting resellers who low ball people who don't know what they have.

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#443

Post by traderj0e » Mon, May 04, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

threetonesun wrote: post #249

parrellel wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, its going to give the CEO and some shareholders a few billion and destroy eBay. Because we can't have nice things. I am so painfully sick of this.

eBay isn't doing itself any favors these days, the site seems to have issues on a regular basis and they're heavily promoting collectible/gambling garbage on the site. If anything eBay and GameStop seem perfect for each other.

There's tons of stuff I wanted or needed that was easiest to find on eBay. And I also sold old things there. Idk idc what the market for anime trading cards looks like.

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#444

Post by iamveen » Mon, May 04, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

fasteo wrote: post #228

pjc50 wrote: post #2

Important background: https://investor.gamestop.com/news-releases/news-details/202... CEO gets paid "only if GameStop achieves a market capitalization of $20 billion." Buying a $55bn company would certainly achieve that quickly. I'm not sure how they'd manage that (buy with what? Memes?), other than the should-be-illegal process of putting debt on the acquired company's balance sheet.

>>> should-be-illegal process of putting debt on the acquired company's balance sheet This is a basically a leveraged buyout (LBO). All private equity works this way. Yes, it should be illegal, or at least heavily limited. I highly recommend this book: "Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America"

On the bright side, if the plebs start making money through LBOs, they might finally find the will to regulate.

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#445

Post by thaumasiotes » Mon, May 04, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #240

The original shorting of GameStop back in 2021 gave them a bit of a boost back into the green. While people were doing the GME to the moon, GameStop made more shares to sell, and paid off a bit of its debts, I think it made about a billion dollars in profit, they're still struggling, but it helped prolong their life. A friend of mine also pointed out and this made it click for me that it makes 100% sense, GameStop is…

> or better yet, getting a cut of what you wanted up front since they're basically a pawn shop, and then they list it on eBay and turn a bit of a profit with a local pickup option available.

More than 10 years ago eBay tried to launch a program where they would buy your stuff and then list it themselves, but it didn't work out.

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#446

Post by traderj0e » Mon, May 04, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

jollyllama wrote: post #219

oybng wrote: post #87

With the state ebay is in, I'd welcome anyone else to run it

I know what you mean, but I highly suspect there's room for it to get worse.

eBay is too easy to take for granted if you've never tried buying or selling things on FB Marketplace or Craigslist. Having people over the internet trade things with minimal middleman is a really hard problem, and someone will always get scammed somewhere.

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#447

Post by digitaltrees » Mon, May 04, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #370

giancarlostoro wrote: post #240

The original shorting of GameStop back in 2021 gave them a bit of a boost back into the green. While people were doing the GME to the moon, GameStop made more shares to sell, and paid off a bit of its debts, I think it made about a billion dollars in profit, they're still struggling, but it helped prolong their life. A friend of mine also pointed out and this made it click for me that it makes 100% sense, GameStop is…

> GameStop is setup as a legal pawnshop in every state. So a pawnshop buying out eBay makes insane sense. It doesn't though. eBay could easily set itself up as a legal pawnshop in every state if it wanted to. It doesn't because there's no advantage to doing so. There are already third-party sellers in many areas who will take your physical merchandise and sell it on eBay in exchange for a cut. eBay doesn't need to en…

But the brick and mortar distribution is hard to build and gives a structural advantage. As another poster pointed out, you could sell your items locally and not need to deal with shipping, communication with buyers and other stuff. It would reduce friction which might actually expand the marketplace significantly. I personally have multiple family members that throw stuff away because listing on eBay is too hard and pawnshops too sketchy

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#448

Post by digitaltrees » Mon, May 04, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

hnav wrote: post #439

delfinom wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People trying to sell their used junk aren't going to accept a 30-40% cut. It's why they aren't using eBay these days in the first place.

Not exactly, the biggest annoyance with eBay (in my experience) is dealing with shipping, disputes and returns. If I could recover even 50% of the value of unused items without dealing with the ridiculousness of p2p transactions (flakes, tire-kickers, scammers) I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Exactly this

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#449

Post by bhouston » Mon, May 04, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

happyopossum wrote: post #286

bhouston wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My kneejerk is that most consumers these days expect delivery for items purchased online 100%. > Now, dropping off items you're selling? This is what Staples is offering to Amazon but for returns - quite similar. And they could offer them to eBay as well I am sure. You do not need your own chain of brick and mortar stores to do this and I am sure the cost per drop off would be cheaper with Staples than your own cha…

> This is what Staples is offering to Amazon but for returns Yes, and usps stores and Whole Foods do that for Amazon in the US as well. The difference is that each of those items don’t need to be individually packaged and shipped to unique locations. My local USPS put all the returns for the day in a giant bin and an Amazon driver picks them up. I think the cost of labor and liability involved in having a local retai…

Sorry, are you saying that USPS cannot handle shipping across the country cost effectively? But somehow GameStop can, which has never done point-to-point shipping before?

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#450

Post by weard_beard » Mon, May 04, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

this_user wrote: post #397

weard_beard wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take? The strategy is like a contractor fixing up houses. GameStop was the crappiest house on the block. He’s fixed it up and is using it as collateral to take out a loan and buy the dilapidated mansion next door (eBay). He’ll keep going until he’s gentrified the whole neighborhood using the value of the current business as collateral to buy the next. He wants to sell only when the value of the entire gentrified n…

The only thing that Cohen has done is shut down stores and cut costs massively at the expensive of revenue. He hasn't really fixed anything, he is just managing their demise. All of his strategic initiatives like expansion of e-commerce or an NFT platform were complete disasters that had to be wound down. The only reason the company is even showing a profit is because they repeatedly diluted shareholders to raise cas…

You’ve presented a plausible and concise counter argument here. Time will tell.

https://dasams.substack.com/p/the-cohen-endgame?r=af3hc&utm_...