A corporate executive staring down a more than $1 billion class-action lawsuit for allegedly artificially inflating stock prices appears to have leapt to his death from a ritzy, iconic New York City building. Bed Bath & Beyond’s Chief Financial Officer Gustavo Arnal was identified by police as the man who jumped to his death this past weekend.
The New York Post reports:
A Bed Bath & Beyond exec was facing a $1.2 billion “pump-and-dump” stock-fraud suit when he apparently leaped to his death from his swank 18th-floor apartment in Lower Manhattan last week.
Gustavo Arnal, who was the chief financial officer of BBB, is among the defendants named in a class-action suit that accuses him, Chewy.com founder Ryan Cohen and others of artificially inflating the troubled housewares giant’s share price.
The class-action complaint, filed Aug. 23 in Washington, DC, federal court, alleges that the scheme also involved “a classic attempt to spark a gamma squeeze.”
Arnal’s death comes at a time the lawsuit, stemming from a plaintiff’s argument that she bought over 8,000 shares of BBY between March and August of this year, has expanded to include clients whose total investments within that time frame exceeded $1.2 billion. The company also announced it would be closing over 150 namesake stores and layoff over 20% of its workforce.
The class-action suit sits in stark contrast to Arnal, who reportedly sold around $1 million worth of shares in mid-August as his alleged pump-and-dump scheme was reaching its zenith. Arnal made over $3 million in 2021 between salary and stock compensations.
During its turbulent year, Bed Bath & Beyond has made regular appearances in the news. ZeroHedge wrote just a few weeks ago that the pumping and dumping in this classic gamma squeeze netted a twenty-year-old college student over $100 million while playing the
20-year-old university student, Jake Freeman, who is an applied mathematics and economics major at the University of Southern California, managed to accumulate 6.2% of the entire outstanding stock of Bed Bath & Beyond at under $5.50 share (did we mention he is a 20-year-old university student) amounting to $27 million, which he announced in an activist 13-G letter to BBBY Management on July 21, 2022, and less than a month later sold out of his entire stake – thanks to the insane gamma squeeze in the stock – not through some prime broker but through his TD Ameritrade and Interactive Brokers accounts, making $110 million in the process!
Of course, while it’s a feel good story, it’s also a riches-to-riches one as well. How many college kids have access to $27 million to invest in a dying big box retail chain? Even Joe Biden can’t forgive those kinds of loans…yet.
Hailey Sanibel fiercely loves freedom. She equally detests evil and stupidity, both of which are out of control in the modern world. She is a regular contributor at The Blue State Conservative.
Don’t let Bidenflation ruin your life savings. Convert your 401(k) to a precious metals IRA with Goldco.
Enjoy HUGE savings at My Pillow with promo code BSC
Follow The Blue State Conservative on Facebook and be sure to sign up to our Email List.
This story syndicated with permission from The Blue State Conservative