Shares of eBay are soaring before the opening bell Monday as Ryan Cohen’s GameStop pursues an approximately $56 billion takeover of the company, seeing it as a vehicle to compete with online retail giant Amazon.
The national gaming retailer said that its approximately 1,600 U.S. stores could become drop-off and shipping locations. One proposal includes live sales broadcasts from GameStop locations featuring eBay products.
“EBay has the second largest commerce franchise and there’s a big opportunity to do something much larger,” Cohen said in a CNBC interview Monday.
GameStop’s bid is $125 per share in cash and stock. The equity value of the proposed deal is $55 billion on paper.
EBay confirmed the huge bid on Monday and said that it has had no talks with GameStop or received any outreach from the company before it received the proposal.
