Video game retailer GameStop’s shares dropped on Friday after the company dismissed its chief financial officer Mike Recupero, amid organisation-wide job cuts.
Shares of the Texas-based company were down more than 6 per cent at $126.7 per share at 6.25pm UAE time on Friday. They were down more than 8 per cent in extended trading on Thursday.
Mr Recupero, who was previously chief financial officer of Amazon’s North American consumer business, will be replaced by Diana Saadeh-Jajeh, the current chief accounting officer of GameStop, the company said.
“Ms Saadeh-Jajeh previously held the role on an interim basis in 2021 and most recently served as the company’s chief accounting officer. The appointment coincides with the company’s termination of the employment of Michael Recupero,” GameStop said in a statement.
The news comes amid reports that the company is making a “number of reductions” in its staffing levels.
GameStop will lay off "a number of" employees as it strives for sustained profitability, American news website Axios cited an internal memo as stating.
"Everyone in the organisation must become even more hands-on and embrace a heightened level of accountability for results," the company's chief executive Matt Furlong reportedly wrote in the memo.
GameStop hired more than 600 workers in 2021 and the first half of 2022 and the company is in a better position to understand its "transformation needs”, the memo said.
It will also reportedly lay off employees at its publication Game Informer.
The termination of Mr Recupero followed the company’s Wednesday announcement of a four-for-one split of its class A common stock in the form of a stock dividend.
Its stocks closed about 15 per cent higher in regular trading after the company announced the stock split on Wednesday.
The company said the stock dividend will be distributed after the close of trading on July 21 and trading will begin on a stock split-adjusted basis on July 22.
In May, GameStop also launched a digital asset wallet to store, send, receive and use digital currencies and non-fungible tokens.
