Is GameStop Still Chasing eBay? Inside Ryan Cohen’s Wavering $56 Billion Takeover Saga Late This Fall

GameStop’s monthslong pursuit of eBay remains unresolved heading into the fall, with Chief Executive Officer Ryan Cohen appearing to have pulled back from an outright acquisition in favor of a scaled-down partnership, even as the video game retailer continues holding one of the largest outside stakes in the e-commerce company.

The saga began in earnest on May 3, when GameStop submitted a non-binding proposal to acquire 100% of eBay for $125 per share in a combination of cash and stock, valuing the deal at approximately $55.5 billion on an undiluted basis. The offer represented a 46% premium to eBay’s closing price on February 4, the day GameStop began accumulating its stake in the company, and came after GameStop had already built roughly a 5% economic interest in eBay through a mix of derivatives and direct share ownership.

EBay’s board rejected the proposal on May 12, saying in a statement that the offer was “neither credible nor attractive.” Company chairman Paul Pressler expressed confidence in eBay’s existing management and standalone strategy, with the board citing concerns about the deal’s financing structure and its potential impact on eBay’s long-term profitability and growth. GameStop did not immediately abandon the pursuit following that rejection. By June, Cohen had taken the offer directly to eBay shareholders in what amounted to a hostile bid, pairing that move with a separate $2 billion share buyback program for GameStop’s own stock running through June 2029. GameStop further increased its position in July, disclosing a stake of 9.8% in eBay, cementing its status as one of the company’s largest shareholders.

Cohen struck a defiant tone about the pursuit in a Bloomberg Television interview in July, telling the network, “we’re coming for eBay one way or another,” while declining to say whether GameStop intended to raise its offer. Cohen has described his broader ambition as building a combined company worth as much as $1 trillion, citing potential synergies in trading cards and collectibles, plans to develop a digital marketplace for video game items, and the idea of using GameStop’s physical retail locations as authentication hubs for collectible card grading.

That posture shifted by early August. Bloomberg News reported on August 10, citing people familiar with the matter, that Cohen was weighing withdrawal of the full $56 billion takeover bid in favor of a more modest partnership or joint venture arrangement. Under that alternative structure, eBay would be able to leverage GameStop’s approximately 1,600 U.S. retail locations, with the two companies potentially expanding their respective footholds in higher-margin categories such as trading cards and collectibles. As part of any such partnership, GameStop would seek representation on eBay’s board of directors, according to the report. The sources cautioned that GameStop had not made a final decision at the time and that Cohen could still pursue other options.

Market reaction to the reported shift was telling. GameStop shares climbed roughly 1.6% in early trading following the report, while eBay shares fell about 2.2%, a divergence that reflected how differently investors had come to view the original acquisition proposal. Bloomberg noted that GameStop’s stock had fallen 28% since Cohen first floated the takeover bid in May, while eBay’s shares had risen 7.6% over the same period, suggesting the market had grown skeptical that the original deal would ever close and viewed a retreat from it as reducing risk for GameStop specifically.

Financial analysts had raised similar doubts from the outset. Commentary published around the time of the original proposal noted the structural mismatch at the heart of the deal: GameStop, a brick-and-mortar retailer that purchases and resells inventory through its store network, was attempting to acquire a company worth nearly six times its own market value that operates an entirely different business model, an online marketplace earning fees by connecting buyers and sellers. Analysts also flagged the heavy reliance on debt financing and stock issuance embedded in the original proposal’s structure as a key point of skepticism.

GameStop’s most recent financial disclosures show the company has continued adjusting its balance sheet even as the eBay situation remains unsettled. The company reported second-quarter results on September 8, posting adjusted earnings per share of 27 cents, in line with consensus estimates, though quarterly revenue fell to $790.2 million from $972.2 million a year earlier, a decline the company attributed to the absence of a comparable Nintendo Switch 2 launch tailwind from the prior year, ongoing store closures, and other divestitures. As of August 1, GameStop held approximately 43.4 million shares of eBay common stock, with a fair value of roughly $4.9 billion, underscoring the scale of GameStop’s continued financial exposure to eBay even amid the reported reconsideration of its original acquisition plan. Separately, GameStop disclosed on September 3 that it had completed exchanges retiring approximately $1.4 billion in convertible notes, reducing its total long-term debt to approximately $2.8 billion.

As of the most recent public reporting, GameStop has not issued a formal statement confirming either the full withdrawal of its original $56 billion acquisition proposal or the formal launch of an alternative partnership structure with eBay. The company’s substantial remaining equity stake in eBay, combined with Cohen’s continued public interest in the collectibles and e-commerce space, suggests some form of ongoing relationship between the two companies remains likely, even if the original vision of a full corporate takeover appears to have given way to a more measured approach centered on retail partnership and board representation rather than outright ownership.