GameStop floats $56B bid to buy eBay: Trial Balance

The Trial Balance is CFO.com’s weekly preview of stories, stats and events to help you prepare.

Part 1 — GameStop CEO’s next target: eBay

The CEO of GameStop, the video game retailer widely known for a “short squeeze” of its stock in 2021, is now laying out plans to acquire online reseller eBay for $56 billion.

GameStop released a statement confirming the plans on Sunday, shortly after The Wall Street Journal reported on rumors about the potential takeover. GameStop said it’s willing to pay $125 per share in cash and stock to buy eBay. The video game company described that offer as “a 46% premium to eBay’s unaffected closing price on February 4, 2026, the day GameStop started accumulating its position in eBay.”

The looming question is how GameStop would pull off financing for the deal. The retailer said it has “received a highly-confident letter from TD Securities for up to $20 billion” toward the purchase. The Journal noted that GameStop has amassed about $9 billion in cash for the deal, but it’s unclear where the remainder of the funding would come from.

Less clear, too, is how eBay’s board and shareholders will respond. The company on Monday issued a statement confirming receipt of GameStop’s unsolicited proposal. “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,” the company said. “eBay shareholders are advised to take no action at this time.”

Ryan Cohen, GameStop’s CEO, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” program that his company has already accumulated a 5% stake in eBay, which he claimed makes GameStop “one of the largest shareholders” of eBay. “… they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to evaluate this proposal,” Cohen told CNBC. “This is a business that is under-earning and can make a lot more money.”

Cohen even told The Wall Street Journal that eBay “could be a legit competitor to Amazon.” He also told the newspaper that he is prepared to mount a proxy fight if eBay rebuffs the offer.

How Wall Street will ultimately respond to such an offer isn’t clear yet. The proposal so far has sent eBay’s stock up, and GameStop’s down. Analysts, too, are likely to have questions about the deal. “Why disrupt things?” asked Bernstein analysts in a note to clients, noting that eBay’s current "turnaround is working.”

Part 2 — This week

Here’s a list of important market events slated for the week ahead.

Monday, May 4 — None scheduled.

Tuesday, May 5

U.S. trade balance, March
Job openings, March
New home sales, March/delayed Feb. report
ISM services, April

Wednesday, May 6

ADP employment, April

Thursday, May 7

Initial jobless claims, week ending May 2
U.S. productivity, Q1
Construction spending, March/delayed Feb. report
Consumer credit, March

Friday, May 8

Part 3 — Quote of the week

“If you dial back 50 years ago and asked someone to define what a chief technology officer did, there would be a lot of different answers back then and a lot of confusion. Whereas 50 years ago, everyone knew what a CFO did.”

Christopher Krohn

Adjunct professor of marketing, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Christopher Krohn, adjunct professor of marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and former VP at freelance talent search firm Toptal, discussed why fractional CFO services were one of the first to emerge in the market in last week’s story on fractional chief financial officer firm CFO Selections receiving a minority investment from Laird Norton Company.