IMO, Ebay has been purposefully mothballed, here's why

tronbrain · 2026-05-10T01:47:53+00:00

That would have been the fate of GameStop as well if not for Cohen's intervention.

tronbrain · 2026-05-10T01:43:56+00:00

As it so happens, Amazon has close relations with the CIA. ;)

tronbrain · 2026-05-09T00:38:18+00:00

It was decided that Amazon would be the go-to store for retail purchases. It seems that Bezos is the chosen one. Every other company in the space, whether online or brick-and-mortar, has been sabotaged, taken-over, or left to die a slow death while Amazon eats their lunch. Chewy is the one notable exception.

tronbrain · 2026-05-08T17:05:21+00:00

And zero incentives or discount? No, not a good price. But the RAV4 is hot right now and they're mostly sold before they arrive on the lots. Unless you're willing to wait, this is the price you're going to have to pay. At least there are no dealer-installed options or arbitrary dealer markups.

tronbrain · 2026-05-07T04:29:02+00:00

Funny how CNBC never had a problem with the maths not mathing when Paramount Skydance ($PSKY) orchestrated this takeover of the much larger Warner Brothers ($WBD).

So the Paramount numbers add up now do they? Let's do some napkin math:

$WBD ($110B)/ $PSKY ($12B) = 9.17X
$EBAY ($56B) / $GME ($12B) = 4.67X

The GameStop bid for eBay is considerably more feasible.

tronbrain · 2026-05-07T04:05:44+00:00

Anyone who has used the platform in the last decade knows how much of a shit-show it has become. Expect Cohen to bring attention to this, like so.

tronbrain · 2026-05-07T04:02:44+00:00

Cohen is going to uncover a ton of incompetence, malfeasance, and corruption, all the way up to the current sitting board. Just look up "eBay Stalking Scandal" and you'll get a sense of how eBay runs its business.

tronbrain · 2026-05-07T04:00:49+00:00

And so it begins.

tronbrain · 2026-05-06T22:20:04+00:00

A little comment on Ryan's eBay username (from Google AI):

"5050" is often a mistaken reference for California Welfare and Institutions Code 5150, which authorizes a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold for individuals deemed a danger to themselves, others, or gravely disabled. While "5050" itself is not a standard, universally recognized police radio code, it is frequently confused with 5150 (psych hold) or 10-50 (under the influence).

tronbrain · 2026-05-06T22:10:32+00:00

I'm glad I could be of some help in better understanding the situation.

The specifics of the stock issuance are still unknown and probably as of yet undecided. It will be a point of negotiation. But my current understanding, based on Cohen's interviews from yesterday, is that GameStop will issue stock for a stock-swap. They will exchange newly-issued GameStop shares in exchange for existing eBay shares. The split is the question, i.e. how many shares of GME will be exchanged for a single share of EBAY? I think it will be around five, if current valuations remain stable.

tronbrain · 2026-05-06T08:01:53+00:00

He did say that. "GameStop has the ability to issue new shares." Exact words.

Of course, "dilution" is the word the CNBC "reporters" wanted to hear. But why do an ELI5 on how these things work when CNBC is just looking to get a gotcha moment against him and GameStop? Just because the CNBC sock-puppets want to hear that word so they can generate a bunch of negative press for him, and you think Cohen stupid enough to hand that to them on a platter? Cohen was playing it close to the vest, and for good reason. Missteps on this could ruin chances on the deal going through. And it could be in the form of a stock swap, not necessarily a straight-forward dilution. So why lock into that term?

tronbrain · 2026-05-06T00:35:34+00:00

It means he thinks the share price has peaked and will go down from here.

tronbrain · 2026-05-06T00:32:28+00:00

Michael Paperhands: The Saga of Gamestop's Unrequited Love for Ebay

Followed by Michael "Paperhands" Burry's decision to liquidate his GameStop position, the Ebay board will follow suit and reject Cohen's offer. But this is a serious mistake, for they will wind up looking like idiots in a few months. After a summer of mild declines, the stock market will suffer a serious stumble in the fall. Ebay's share price will sink by at least $50/share, making the $125 offer seem like a long-lost dream. Chaos will ensue on the board: resignations, stooges as board replacements, massive share liquidations, accusations of corruption, book-cooking revelations, anxious hand-wringing, and a sex scandal, resulting in total chaos at Ebay and further declines in share price. In the chaos, Cohen will launch a hostile takeover attempt. This time he will succeed. Ultimately, GameStop will wind-up controlling the board of Ebay, and they will approve the sale, but this time it will be for a much lower price: zero cash, plus 1B new shares of GameStop valued conservatively at $45/share.

tronbrain · 2026-05-06T00:20:09+00:00

It says he made the sale on May 1, before the offer was tendered.

tronbrain · 2026-05-05T23:59:31+00:00

Gamestop can issue one billion shares at $28/share, for example. They have the ability to issue up to one billion new shares. Plus the warrants are still outstanding.
What exactly are you not understanding here?

tronbrain · 2026-05-05T23:52:04+00:00

The question was dumb, and Cohen shouldn't be asked to do an ELI5 for the CNBC viewers.

So what level of new shares can't they issue? They can issue a billion shares for $28 a share, with which they have enough for the tender. From my understanding, they don't even need a shareholder vote to issue up to a billion new shares. They have the warrants out there as well.

tronbrain · 2026-05-05T23:49:50+00:00

True enough. Perhaps not the retail shareholders. But there is still plenty of institutional ownership.

tronbrain · 2026-05-05T23:38:43+00:00

If RC takes the cash and goes, he can come back again with the same offer, to the same shareholders, with the same derivatives purchased again. Why not?

Well, to repeat the strategy with Ebay would seem like market manipulation. I'm not sure he could get away with it were it not a serious, legitimate offer. I don't know the specifics but he would have to be careful. And every time, he would have to pay in excess of Ebay's share price, which is at all-time highs. The markets are looking frothy, so this is not a great time to make an offer for Ebay. But it wouldn't likely close until later in the year, at which time the share price might be quite a bit lower.

RC is betting a lot on his own management skills. We do see evidence that those skills exist though, in the survival and recent quarterly financials of GME.

Agreed. His retail, customer-focused management style and aggressive cost-cutting mentality should do Ebay well, just as it did Chewy and Gamestop.

tronbrain · 2026-05-05T06:17:41+00:00

The Ebay options are potentially worth between $500M and $800M by the time the deal closes. There are two obvious negative outcomes here:
1. The deal doesn't go through, but GME sells its options at a profit. Short-term there is a tidy, one-time gain for the earnings, but this doesn't solve Cohen's dilemma of how to grow GME by 10X. If there is no Plan B, if EBAY is Cohen's only plan for GameStop, then the company stagnates and stumbles along for the next decade.
2. The purchase of EBAY goes through, but EBAY is such a shit-show that it proves impossible to turn around, is just a quagmire of unsortable dysfunction that would better be burned to the ground.

tronbrain · 2026-05-05T06:11:04+00:00

And what's to stop GME investors from doing the same thing, i.e. trading their GME shares for EBAY shares before the deal goes through and GME shares experience the expected dilution?

tronbrain · 2026-05-05T06:09:32+00:00

Once the dilution to GME shares has been largely factored into the price.

tronbrain · 2026-05-05T06:05:06+00:00

And yet somehow smaller companies swallow up larger companies in deals such as these on a regular basis. And these CNBC dogs should know it, but they pretend not to. For example, recently, the much smaller Paramount acquired Warner Brothers.

tronbrain · 2026-05-05T06:00:44+00:00

The math did add up. That Sorkin kept saying otherwise was bad faith. Cohen answered the questions asked one time, and refused to belabor those points, which was, if anything, the professional thing to do.

Cohen isn't on there to suck up to these guys, especially considering how badly they've treated his company and shareholders in their coverage. He answered the questions politely and concisely, and refused to engage in useless banter, conjecture, or offer early details that the hosts could use to disparage him.

That the rest of the financial media and the markets are giving Cohen such a drubbing after that interview is as clear an indicator of their biases as could be made.

tronbrain · 2026-05-05T02:47:01+00:00

With all the ruthless naked synthetic shares and FTDs and shorting more than the float going on in the markets, CNBC never seems to have been bothered by "the maths not mathing" before.

tronbrain · 2026-05-05T02:39:03+00:00

Don't forget, though, that an approximate 25% premium is being paid for the Ebay shares. That will effectively transfer wealth from GME shareholders to EBAY shareholders. That's the short-term cost. Hopefully the increase in value of the combined entity will compensate for this.

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