Bed, Bath & Beyond shares fall after investor Ryan Cohen reveals intent to sell stake

Bed Bath & Beyond shares tumbled 20% in extended trading Wednesday after activist investor Ryan Cohen said he intends to sell his entire stake in the retailer through his firm RC Ventures.

According to a Form 144 that was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, RC Ventures intends to sell 9.45 million shares of the company, which is the total amount it holds in Bed Bath. A Form 144 acts an official notice of a proposed security sale.

Representatives for RC Ventures and Bed Bath didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The aggregate purchase price of the 7.78 million shares directly owned by RC Ventures is roughly $119.4 million, excluding brokerage commissions, according to earlier SEC filings. And the aggregate purchase price of the firm’s call options exercisable into 1.67 million shares owned directly by RC Ventures is about $1.8 million, also excluding those commission.

Cohen first revealed he held a nearly 10% stake in Bed Bath through his activist firm in early March. FactSet says his holdings amounted to 11.82% as of late March.

At the time, Cohen, the GameStop chairman and founder of Chewy, wrote a letter to Bed Bath’s then-CEO, Mark Tritton, saying he believed the home goods chain was struggling to reverse market share declines and navigate supply chain woes. He also urged the retailer to consider selling its Buybuy Baby chain.

Later in March, Bed Bath said it struck a deal with the activist’s firm to add three people chosen by Cohen to its board of directors, effective immediately.

Just three months later, Bed Bath abruptly replaced Tritton as CEO in June, naming restructuring expert and independent director Sue Gove as his interim successor. This came after the company suffered another quarter of sluggish sales and heavy losses. 

Still, the meme stock craze has found new life in recent weeks, and Bed Bath has been the primary beneficiary. As of Wednesday’s close, the stock was up 58% so far this year, easily outpacing the broader market.

Shares of the home goods retailer are up more than 300% in August alone, with heavy trading volume.

The stock saw trading of nearly 400 million shares on Tuesday and another 249 million shares on Wednesday, according to FactSet.

Bed Bath has also been far and away the most mentioned stock on Reddit’s Wall Street Bets page over the past week, according to third party data provider Quiver Quantitative.

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