Show Notes
Send us Fan Mail 🚨 EMERGENCY EPISODE: GameStop just made an unsolicited $56 billion bid for eBay, and the math is NOT mathing. After watching CEO Ryan Cohen's bizarre live CNBC interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin (where he kept deflecting questions with answers like "it's on the website"), we hit *record* immediately to break this down.Kristen, our resident investment banking, PE, and M&A expert, walks through why this deal defies the laws of physics:The offer: $125/share, half cash, half stock — roughly $56bn totalGameStop's market cap: under $11bnCash needed: $28bn (GameStop has $9bn on hand + a "up to $20bn" TD Bank commitment letter)Combined company leverage: ~10x EBITDA (a massive LBO is typically 7x — banks don't do 10x)The $17bn equity hole: where is it actually coming from?We compare this to the Paramount/Warner Bros deal (spoiler: that one works because Larry Ellison is bankrolling it), unpack GameStop's curious 5% derivative stake in eBay, and explore the theories floating around — CEO comp package triggers, a possible "uno reverse" play to get eBay to bid for GameStop instead, and echoes of the Porsche/Volkswagen hostile takeover.Plus: Ryan Cohen's background, the dismissed Bed Bath & Beyond pump-and-dump lawsuit, and why no sovereign wealth fund has a strategic reason to write the check.Got a theory on what's really going on? Drop it in the comments.Want to learn how to actually run accretion/dilution analyses and tear deals apart like this? Check out our 35+ hour self-paced Investment Banking & Private Equity Fundamentals course, taught by Kristen.https://thewallstreetskinny.com/premium-self-study/ Shop our Self Paced Courses: Investment Banking & Private Equity Fundamentals HEREFixed Income Sales & Trading HERE Subscribe to our Substack: https://substack.com/@thewallstreetskinny
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Everyone in the financial media is telling you the same story: Scott Bessent's surprise Treasury buyback announcement is a thumb on the scale of the bond market, and it's making Kevin Warsh's job at the Fed harder. But what if the headlines have it exactly backwards? What if the Treasury Secretary is actually running interference for the one thing the Fed Chair can't do himself? Fresh off asking Bessent this question face-to-face at the Charlotte Economic Club, Jen breaks down why she thinks there's a stealth rate hike hiding inside what looks like yield suppression, and why the best way to understand it is a three-act magic trick straight out of The Prestige.