GameStop makes $55.5bn takeover offer for eBay
Video game retailer GameStop has made a surprise $55.5bn (£40.9bn) bid to buy e-commerce giant eBay.
Cash and stock offer eBay is valued at $125 per shareThat’s $20 more than the company was worth when trading ended in New York on Friday.
Ryan Cohen, GameStop’s chief executive, said eBay could be much more successful under his leadership and even rival Amazon.
And he said eBay was prepared to take its offer directly to shareholders if the board rejected it. eBay said it would consider the offer, but analysts expressed skepticism about the idea.
Morgan Stanley said the two companies have “fundamentally different” business models, while Bernstein said he would be “surprised if anything comes of this,” noting GameStop’s smaller balance sheet.
GameStop rose to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic when it became the center of the so-called meme stock craze.
This saw retail investors buying shares of unpopular companies This caused share prices to rise and fall sharply, with professional investors betting against it.
The chain still has about 1,600 outlets in the U.S. and has seen something of a turnaround under Cohen’s management.
Despite declining sales, its net profit rose to $418.4 million in 2025 from $131.3 million the previous year.
eBay, which is nearly four times more valuable than GameStop, launched in 1995 as a marketplace for hobbyists and has become one of tech’s most recognized brands.
However, its user base has shrunk due to competition from rivals such as Amazon. It currently has 136 million users worldwide, up from 175 million in 2018.
“eBay should be and will be worth a lot more money,” Cohen told the Wall Street Journal. “Amazon may have a legitimate competitor,” he added.
Under the proposed deal to acquire eBay, Cohen would become CEO of the new firm and would not receive any salary or bonus, but would be “compensated solely based on the combined company’s performance.”
GameStop, which currently has a stock market valuation of about $11.9 billion, said it has a letter of commitment from TD Securities that will provide about $20 billion in debt to help finance the acquisition.
Cohen said he plans to cut costs at eBay by $2 billion within a year of the deal closing.
That will fall to eBay’s sales and marketing division, which GameStop said has failed to attract more users “into a market with near-universal brand recognition.”
Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at research firm Forrester, said the offer didn’t seem like “a very good offer” because it could burden eBay with GameStop’s debt.
