(Reuters) – GameStop said on Tuesday it had completed an “on-the-market” equity offering of its shares to raise about $2.14 billion in total revenue for meme stock influencer Keith Gill’s first livestream in three years.
Shares of the video game retailer at the center of the meme stock frenzy rose more than 5% on the news before reversing course, falling 1.6% in volatile extended trading.
In a livestream Friday with more than 600,000 viewers, Gill, the man behind the eye-popping rally in the struggling company’s stock in 2021, joked about memes and interspersed his discussion of GameStop with various rebuttals. Shares fell nearly 40% on the session.
GameStop said it sold 75 million shares, the highest amount ever recorded under the plan.
The average selling price for each GameStop share was about $28.50, according to Reuters calculations. Shares of the company closed at $30.49 after trading on Tuesday.
The company said it intends to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, including acquisitions and investments.
GameStop surprised investors last week by releasing its first-quarter results ahead of schedule, where it showed a 28.7% decline in revenue to $881.8 million and announced a stock sale.
CEO Ryan Cohen held an 8.6% stake in the video game retailer as of June 10, up from 10.5% on May 22, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
In May, the company sold 45 million shares and raised another $933.4 million. It unveiled its stock sale plan earlier that month amid a retail buying frenzy sparked by Gill’s return to social media.
Kill’s bullish calls on GameStop, dubbed “Roaring Kitty” on YouTube, are one reason for the frenzy in 2021 memes stocks.
Through his positive case on Reddit posts and YouTube streams, Gill has helped attract a flood of retail money to the troubled brick-and-mortar retailer.
(Reporting by Manya Saini, Sourasis Bose and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Vijay Kishore)
