“eBay should be worth – and will be worth – a lot more money,” Cohen told the Wall Street Journal. “It could be a legit competitor to Amazon,” he added.
Under the proposed deal to buy eBay, Cohen would become the chief executive of the new firm and receive no salary or bonuses, being “compensated solely based on the performance of the combined company”.
GameStop, which currently has a stock market valuation of around $11.9bn, said it has a commitment letter from TD Securities to provide around $20bn in debt to help finance the takeover.
Cohen said he planned to cut costs at eBay by $2bn within a year of a deal being completed.
This would mainly fall across eBay’s sales and marketing division, which GameStop said had failed to attract more users to a “marketplace with near-universal brand recognition”.
The proposal does not sound like a “terribly good offer” as it would saddle eBay with GameStop’s debt, said Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at research firm Forrester.
It makes sense for GameStop because it could lift its valuation by being linked with a larger company like eBay, she told the BBC.
“The truth is, we are not necessarily putting two strong companies together,” Kodali added.
Shares in eBay rose by 5.5% on Monday morning in New York, while GameStop fell by more than 4%.
GameStop’s shops would give eBay a national network for its “live commerce” and other business operations, Cohen said.
Cohen, who became the GameStop boss in 2023, has criticised its slow shift into e-commerce.
