Proactive Investors - GameStop Corp (NYSE:GME)’s now-former chief operating officer Nir Patel is the latest senior member to leave the video game retailer.
His departure follows in the footsteps of former chief executive Matt Furlong, who was ousted from his position last June and replaced by activist investor Ryan Cohen.
One month later, former chief financial officer Diana Saadeh-Jajeh tendered her resignation and was replaced by Daniel Moore on an interim basis. Moore was permanently appointed to the role last month.
GameStop has churned through an impressive number of senior executives since emerging from the meme stock frenzy of 2021.
The headcount currently stands at three CEOs (Jim Bell, George Sherman, Matt Furlong), two CFOs (Mike Recupero, Saadeh-Jajeh) and now, a COO.
The chain has been on borrowed time since 2017, which was the last year it managed to turn a profit.
Gamestop shares briefly rallied to an all-time high of nearly $500 in early 2021 when investors gathered around the /wallstreetbets sub-Reddit to artificially pump its stock price in a short squeeze against hedge funds that were banking on the stock to fall.
Since then, the stock has collapsed to $11.50.
Fourth-quarter earnings posted last week failed to match forecasts and a series of job cuts was concurrently announced.
"Revenues are highly unlikely to rebound unless management figures out a way to drive store traffic," Wedbush analysts said of GameStop’s results.
But with digital game downloads becoming the standard and high-street spending in a global downturn, the meme stock darling is swimming against the tide.