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GameStop posts first earnings report since Reddit mania

23 March 2021
 Dan Ackermann
Data: FactSet; Chart: Axios Visuals

GameStop sales fell during its all-important holiday quarter — the first business update from the company since the Reddit-fueled stock mania.

Why it matters: For all the talk about GameStop's stock, there's been less about the company itself — which has struggled to adapt to the more digital video game landscape.

Details: GameStop also said it's been "evaluating" since January (when the stock price surge started) whether to raise money this year through a stock sale.

  • It's one way the company could take advantage of the hype around its stock.
  • In a regulatory filing, it said it could use proceeds to "fund the acceleration of its future transformation."
  • Executives did not directly address the stock run-up.

By the numbers: GameStop closed out 2020 with another year of falling revenue, illustrating the brick-and-mortar store's longstanding challenges made worse by the pandemic.

  • Sales dropped for the ninth straight quarter.
  • The company said it shuttered almost 700 stores in the past year.
  • The pandemic did help fuel e-commerce sales: they made up over one-third of total sales (compared to 12% this time last year, before the pandemic hit).

The big picture: GameStop in recent weeks has announced a slate of executive switch-ups, amid a turnaround effort to better compete digitally led by activist investor Ryan Cohen.

  • Alongside the earnings report, the company named former Amazon and Google executive Jenna Owners as its new chief operating officer.

Worth noting: Most companies hold question-and-answer sessions with Wall Street analysts on earnings calls. GameStop, with an earnings call at capacity, notably did not.

  • The stock whipsawed after the earnings report, before fallingas much as 10%.
  • At the height of the stock surge, GameStop's stock hovered near $480 per share. It's fallen back down to earth slightly — $180, but still up 870% this year.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.