GameStop fires CFO
GameStop is shaking up its corporate ranks.
The struggling video game and electronics retailer has fired its CFO, Mike Recupero, who joined the company in June 2021 along with CEO Matt Furlong as part of a leadership shakeup in the wake of activist investor Ryan Cohen joining the GameStop board in January 2021. (He is now chairman.) Recupero and Furlong are both former Amazon executives.
Recupero, the fifth person in four years to serve as GameStop CFO, will be replaced in the role by chief accounting officer Diana Jajeh. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company stated that he would “be entitled to certain remuneration, rights and benefits associated with a termination without cause.”
According to a report by CNBC, Recupero was pushed out of GameStop by Cohen. The report said he was terminated because he was “not the right culture fit” and was “too hands off.”
GameStop is also making corporate layoffs across departments. In a memo to employees by Furlong that was obtained by CNBC, the company said it has made more than 600 corporate hires since the start of 2021.
“After making more than 600 corporate hires in 2021 and the first half of 2022, we have a stronger understanding of our transformation needs,” Furlong wrote in the memo. “This has positioned us to right-size headcount across several corporate departments. Today, we’re making a number of reductions to help us keep things simple and operate nimbly with the right talent in place.”
Furlong said the company will be making a “significant investment” in its store leaders and field employees, with the details to be revealed in the coming weeks.
The departure of Recupero and the layoff news came on the heels of GameStop announcing that its board had approved a 4-for-1 stock split. For its most recent quarter, GameStop reported a loss of $158 million, compared with a loss of $67 million in the year-ago quarter. Sales rose to $1.38 billion.
To read the full CNBC story and memo, click here.
GameStop shares rose 15.1% Thursday, their best single-day gain since May 25, after the company disclosed plans for a four-for-one stock split.