• GameStop's shares down 7% before the bell to $26.38 as co seeks capital raise to purchase bitcoin
• Video game retailer late Weds announced it's offering privately $1.3 bln 0% 5-yr convertible bonds (CBs)
• GME shares finished up nearly 12% on Weds after co reported Q4 results and said it would add the cryptocurrency as a treasury reserve asset
• GameStop's pivot is similar to that of Strategy , which has tapped the capital markets extensively to hoard bitcoin
• As of Feb 3, GameStop had $4.77 bln in cash, most of which was collected from ATM ("at-the-market") sales of equity
• Co had ~$12.7 bln market cap through Weds, per LSEG data
• The reference price used to determine the conversion premium of the CBs to be based on the stock's VWAP (volume weighted avg price) from 1:00 p.m. through 4:00 p.m ET on Thurs
• Through Weds, stock down 9.5% YTD. A year ago, the stock
closed at $13.17
(Lance Tupper is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed
are his own)
