GameStop Shares Edge Down Ahead of Critical Shareholder Meeting

The price of GameStop shares was little changed Friday as investors in the video game retailer awaited new insight into the company come Monday.

GameStop’s stock price fell 1.4% Friday to $28.70, edging slightly lower in after-hours trading to $28.46, as of this writing. Earlier in the week, shares in the video game retailer had popped as high as $33.70 on Wednesday.

A shareholder meeting was delayed Thursday after technical difficulties prevented fans and investors from gaining access to the firm’s call. The company later stated in a press release that the meeting would take place on Monday around noon Eastern Time.

Overwhelming demand caused servers to crash, Computer Share, the stock transfer company slated to host GameStop’s meeting, confirmed to CNBC. Attendees listened in anticipation for nearly an hour before the meeting was “immediately adjourned.”

Emerging as the de facto face of online GameStop fanatics in 2021, speculation abounded online that trader Keith Gill, better known online as Roaring Kitty, could be appointed to the company’s board of directors during the postponed meeting.

On Thursday, the meme stock influencer earlier in the week disclosed that his position had significantly changed. Appearing to sell or exercise millions of dollars of call option he held in GameStop, Gill purported through his Reddit account to hold 9 million shares—nearly double the previous amount of 5 million shares.

Valued at $262 million in his latest “YOLO update,” Gill’s 9 million GameStop shares make him among the stock’s largest holders. For example, he holds more shares in the video game retailer than institutions such as State Street, Charles Schwab Investment Management, and the Bank of New York Mellon, according to Yahoo Finance.

Gill’s return to livestreaming about GameStop on YouTube last Friday captivated interest from more than 700,000 viewers, who watched him speak about the company, carefully, for the first time in years. Moments before Gill spoke, shares had slid to $32.

“It is what it is. What am I going to do?” Gill said at the time, taking a jab at himself later on Monday, suggesting that he could’ve been a billionaire if the price had kept climbing.

Edited by Andrew Hayward