Why Skills-First Leadership Is Replacing the Ivy League Playbook in the C-Suite
05/23/2025
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The old prestige pyramid—where Ivy League degrees and blue-chip consulting backgrounds paved the way to the CEO seat—is cracking.
August 22, 2022: -Investor Ryan Cohen has left his role in retailer Bed Bath & Beyond, according to a securities filing unleashed on Thursday.
Cohen said in a filing that he intended to market his holdings of the meme stock. The filing shows that Cohen’s RC Ventures abandoned its stock on Tuesday and Wednesday at $18.68 per share and $29.22 for each share. The firm also sold its call options.
Shares of the stock decreased 44.6% in extended trading, which adds to a loss of almost 20% in the regular trading session of Thursday.
Cohen, who co-founded Chewy and is the chairman of GameStop, purchased over 7 million shares and called options of Bed Bath & Beyond. The company said that the board members of Cohen’s choosing pushed out its CEO after RC Ventures revealed its stake.
Cohen originally purchased his Bed Bath & Beyond shares at roughly $15.34 per share. According to CNBC, Cohen made nearly $59 million, before brokerage fees, on his trade of Bed Bath & Beyond common stock. He may have caused additional profits on the options.
On Wednesday, Bed Bath & Beyond added it had reached a “constructive agreement” with RC Ventures in March and was looking for potential changes to its fiscal structure.
Bed Bath & Beyond shares have soared, fueled partly by retail traders’ apparent revival of the meme trading craze. Shares were up over 200% in August as of Thursday’s close.
Bed Bath & Beyond has experienced abnormally high trading volume this month, and the stock is becoming the dominant topic of conversation on the WallStreetBets page.
The retail investor interest has arrived despite the company’s fundamental struggles. In June, Bed Bath & Beyond reported that its first-quarter net sales decreased 25% year by year, which resulted in a net loss of $358 million. The company said negative operating cash flow of regarding $400 million.
The great concern is that its liquidity could be drying up, and the company must raise the recent capital to stay afloat.
Bed Bath & Beyond reported $108 million in cash and equivalents in its financial first quarter, from $1.1 billion a year prior.
According to its latest quarterly file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company had drawn on its existing $1 billion asset-based revolving credit facility from JPMorgan Chase.
But as the assets used as collateral for that ABL facility lose value, Bed Bath & Beyond will face more pressure from its lenders to crop costs and find money elsewhere.
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