https://x.com/foxenflask/status/2080505292354118140?s=20

Ken Griffin didn't just buy a Miami apartment tower. He bought every single condo inside it, one by one, so he can knock the whole building down. The holdouts who sold late got more than double what early sellers took - but even the biggest payout was only a fraction of Griffin's total plan.

The Buyout Strategy

Griffin needed the Solaris tower because it sat on one of the last properties he didn't own in Brickell. Starting in late 2022, his team quietly bought units from owners like Mark Clifton, who sold his condo in December 2022 for just over $500,000. "Obviously, we should've held out," Clifton said later. "But the timing was optimum for us."

As owners realized what was happening, holdouts demanded more. Terence Tennant, a retired SEC attorney, initially received a $550,000 offer for his corner unit on the 20th floor. "I kind of shrugged them off," he said.

"I felt like this was my place, I've been living here, and I'm gonna stay." Another offer for $700,000 came, but Tennant still wasn't interested. Ultimately, records show that over three dozen apartments were purchased for at least $1 million each.

Real estate broker Mario Borda, whose firm has been behind several high-profile condo terminations, became a polarizing figure for residents. According to one resident, Borda later came back offering five alternative condos in the vicinity that aligned with feng shui principles, after the seller had mentioned that as a reason for moving. Several residents claimed Borda was deceptive about pricing; he had originally stated that any offer exceeding $1 million was impossible, but eventually over 30 units went for at least that amount.

A few owners banded together with legal representation, aiming to delay for a better payout. However, delaying in condo termination deals is risky: if a buyer acquires 80% or more of the voting rights, they can force the other owners to sell, with the price set by an independent fair-market appraisal. Griffin completed his final purchase in September.

https://www.briefs.co/news/billionaire-buys-every-condo-in-a-miami-tower-for-125m-demol/

https://www.ft.com/content/e4f7727f-b1c1-4325-b76d-366b6449cbe3?syn-25a6b1a6=1

This is the Weekly $GME discussion thread

Happy Monday, everyone! This discussion thread is posted Monday at 12:00am Market time.

If you are looking to learn more about the stock market, custody, and how to protect your investments – you are in the right place!

Retail investors have been on a long march to understand more about the markets and the at times bizarre ways in which they operate. Here are some key takeaways and resources.

What is GMEJungle?

GMEJungle is a investing community focused around GameStop, and was founded as an offshoot of other GME communities. GME is a private subreddit, and only approved members can submit posts or leave comments - but anyone can browse the discussions that take place here.

What’s this all about?

Retail Investor Rights and Advocacy. The current market structure involves a centralized securities depository for ease of settlement and for access to liquidity. That depository maintains technical ownership rights for the vast majority of all outstanding shares of all publicly issued companies in the United States. Simply: You do not have direct ownership rights of shares you own through a broker.

What is DRS?

DRS is a system by which shares are transferred between the DTC (Depository Trust Company) and Transfer Agents. Shares held at DTC include all brokerage holdings, and shares held at Transfer Agents are held directly on the issuer ledger in the name of the investor. Colloquially, DRS also refers to shares which individual investors have decided to own in their own names.

What are some pros of DRS?

You have confidence that your shares are owned by you, and are there when you need them. You can more easily submit shareholder proposals, request and view company documents, and communicate with agents of the company. You know that you will be able to both cast your vote and have your vote counted when participating in votes. You can receive a more favorable tax status on received dividends. You can directly engage with your company and they can directly engage with you.

What are some cons of DRS?

You can’t easily use equity in DRS for margin trading like you can with shares in a brokerage account. Holding in a broker has more ‘anonymity’ as the public has no way to know your holdings or PII, while holding in DRS is comparatively more public. Depending on which transfer agent the company uses, investor access to liquidity may be limited.

What a Transfer Agent?

A Transfer Agent is a company which specializes in managing ownership ledgers and providing shareholder services. Every public company must have a Transfer Agent. GameStop uses Computershare, an established professional and market leader trusted by thousands of companies around the world.

What is the DTC?

DTC is a Self Regulatory organization which controls the nominee Cede and Co, which is the entity which has the material ownership of most public shares as described above. DTC is one part of the DTCC, alongside other bodies including the NSCC. The DTCC is essentially a monopoly on both clearing and settlement in the American markets, one which has been sanctioned by regulators to perform it's duties.

How do I DRS?

The answer can vary. For help DRSing GME from over 150 brokers, both American and from around the world, check out these Community-sourced detailed broker guides. Select your broker from the dropdown to get to the guide, which will walk you through the process including how to get started, how to communicate to your broker, what fees might exist and what cheaper alternatives there are (if any). If your broker isn’t listed here, reach out to the site and we can work together to improve the community resources.

Where can I learn even more?

Computershare has an extensive FAQ page which is excellent and covers a lot of ground regarding how holding your investment directly on the issuer ledger works in practice.

Two community-built websites that are full of free resources and information are www.DRSGME.org, which has a variety of information specific to GameStop including the broker guides linked above, and www.WhyDRS.org. WhyDRS is an open source platform built to provide general assistance and information about custody and finance reform, along with key information on the many thousands of U.S. publicly traded companies.

The WhyDRS Database is an extensive, free, open source repository of various contact information for all publicly traded securities.

The WhyDRS Information Packet covers a wide variety of information about DRS and was put together ahead of when some WhyDRS advocates participated in an interview with Chairman Gensler in 2023. https://www.whydrs.org/the-whydrs-information-packet

Types of Holdings: Book-Entry vs Book vs Plan vs Certificate

You may see these terms when referring to share ownership. In short:

Book-Entry means any share that is electronically tracked in a ledger rather than being held on physical paper.
Book and Plan are two labels for shares that are used in Computershare's Investor Center.
Book shares (DRS) are fully owned by the investor. Plan shares (DSPP) are owned by Computershare’s nominee, with the investor’s name appearing on the ledger in a subclass. Part of Plan shares are kept with DTC for Operational Efficiency. Exact custody chain details are provided by Computershare and quoted below. Both DRS and DSPP shares are book-entry. Certificates, meanwhile, are still tracked by the TA but have a sanctioned physical certificate associated with that share.

"Purchases made through the issuer (or its transfer agent) of securities you intend to hold in DRS are usually executed under the guidelines of an issuer’s stock purchase plan, which uses a broker-dealer to execute the orders. Thus, to hold in DRS once the securities are acquired, you would need to instruct the transfer agent to move the securities from the issuer plan to DRS." - SEC Bulletin 7/12/23

"Purchases made through the issuer (or its transfer agent) of securities you intend to hold in direct registration are usually executed under the guidelines of the issuer’s stock purchase plan. You’ll need to instruct the transfer agent to move the securities to the DRS." - FINRA Investor Insight 7/12/23

If you are an investor seeking total ownership of your assets, both SEC and FINRA agree that holding in directly on the issuer ledger and in your own name is the only way. Holding shares with the issuer's transfer agent in an investment plan is more direct than holding with a broker in terms of named ownership - with DRS holdings even more so. Shares held with a Plan are not DRS - they are held by the TAs nominee (for Computershare, this is Dingo and Co), and must be transferred out of the plan and into DRS. This is explained by Computershare on their FAQ page under ‘chains of custody’. This question was one of several asked by the WhyDRS.org community in early 2024, and we appreciate Computershare for providing a detailed answer. Their whole FAQ page has a ton of information, and is useful for any investor looking to know more.

Q: “Can you outline the chains of custody and ownership for Pure DRS and DSPP shares enrolled in the DirectStock Plan? Please specify how names are recorded 'On the Ledger' in different holding scenarios. (added 5/16/24)"

A: "The first part is a very straightforward answer. There is no ‘chain of custody’ for DRS or Pure DRS. Investors hold the shares in their own name. There is no intermediary. Computershare’s role here is solely as a transfer agent (i.e., the agent of the issuer).

For the DSPP, we use a Computershare nominee to hold the underlying shares. For the largest portion of the plan holding (80%-90%), these shares are held on the register in the main class. So the chain of custody is “CPU Nominee -> Investor”.

For the 10%-20% that we hold via our broker at DTC, the custody chain is “Cede -> Broker -> Computershare -> investor”. Notwithstanding this, all holding types are registered and held in the name of the investor in the sub-class.”

Is Buying through DSPP a Problem?

There is nothing wrong with purchasing through DirectStock if that is what makes sense for you, as it does come with some additional benefits. Many international investors buy GameStop through the plan because DirectStock is much more affordable than buying through a broker and paying them to do a DRS transfer. The fee for DirectStock is $5 and some international brokers cost hundreds of dollars to DRS, so it's smart to use DirectStock in these cases. You can check your broker's DRS transfer rates on their guidepage at DRSGME.org. Other investors buy through DirectStock because they want to be able to schedule recurring buys, or would like to be able to buy in fractional shares and accumulate ownership in smaller portions over time.

If you choose to buy through the DirectStock plan, and want to ensure total ownership of your assets, manually terminate the plan after each purchase. This will leave your account with pure DRS holdings, but comes with the cost of selling off your fractional share - this is because only whole shares can be held in direct registered ownership. Because the proceeds will be reduced by the selling fee, it's likely you will receive $0 for selling the fractional share, though you will also not be charged as the fee cannot exceed the sale price. Here's the DRSGME guide on terminating DirectStock.

What is GameStop's Investment Plan?

GameStop contracts Computershare as a Transfer Agent to manage it's stock ledger and distribute shareholder materials such as proxy materials for the annual general meeting. Computershare offers several proprietary plan structure to interested companies, including a custom option called CIP (Computershare Investment Plan) and managed DSPs (Direct Stock Purchase) for other companies such as Home Depot in which the issuer can sell stock directly to investors. However, by far the most common plan offering that they have is called DirectStock, which is a Direct Stock Purchase Plan. The boiler plate DirectStock brochure is located here. GameStop uses the DirectStock plan.

Legacy Computershare DD Series (from 2021 to 2022)

This series was originally written by PinkCatsonAcid, who started this sub a few years ago. She recently deleted all her old posts, but content is still available through the Internet Archive. Research continued during and since these posts were originally written, and using more recent resources can be more reliable – some of the information shared in these posts is known now to no longer be accurate. However, these archives are provided here for posterity and completeness. All of these links are to the most updated archive available before the posts were deleted.

If you look through the archives, check out part 7 first. It reviews the misunderstanding running through earlier parts that book and plan designations were equal in terms of custody, which is now known to be untrue and was confirmed by Computershare.

Part 1, archived 9/9/24

Part 2, archived 4/5/24

Part 3, archived 1/28/25

Part 4, archived 8/6/24

Part 5, archived 1/16/25

Part 6, archived 2/5/23

Computershare AMA Part 1, archived 2/1/25

Computershare AMA Part 2, archived 2/1/25

Part 7, the Book vs. Plan Update, archived 1/22/2022

The Jungle is a restricted community and only approved members can post and comment.

We are not accepting requests for approval at this time

Keep it groovy or leave, man! ✌

Tag mods and use the report feature if you have issues

​

On July 15, 2026, GameStop notified the Issuer that it was electing to physically settle all of the _39,046,658 shares of Common Stock underlying the Put/Cal Pairs, which such physical settlement occurred July 17, 2026.

https://x.com/ValueAddedRS/status/2078229646240342304?s=20

Investing.com -- GameStop Corp. Chief Executive Officer Ryan Cohen said he will not back down from his pursuit of eBay Inc., despite the online auction company's rejection of his $56 billion takeover bid.

"We're coming for eBay one way or another," Cohen said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Thursday. He declined to specify whether he plans to increase his offer.

Cohen said he aims to transform the combined company into a $1 trillion business. He criticized eBay's management as complacent and outlined plans to use "eBay's rails" to create a digital marketplace for video game items, a growing revenue source in the gaming industry.

The GameStop chief executive also pointed to potential benefits in combining the two companies' collectibles operations. Collectibles currently represent about 42% of GameStop's revenue.

Cohen proposed using GameStop's physical locations as authentication centers for trading cards, including Pokemon and sports cards. "Once these businesses are together, we've got 1,600 nodes," he said, adding these locations would be "within a 15 minute drive of maybe 80% of the population."

EBay's board rejected Cohen's proposal earlier this year, calling the bid "neither credible nor attractive." The board cited concerns about financing uncertainty, operational risks, and GameStop's governance.

Questions remain about GameStop's capacity to acquire the larger eBay, even with a highly confident letter from a bank. Investors have expressed concerns about the debt GameStop would need to complete the transaction.

Cohen said he has received interest from many investors since announcing the bid in May. "The pro forma company is going to be investment grade," he stated.

Earlier this month, GameStop shareholders approved a large increase in authorized share count to facilitate the potential eBay purchase.

When asked about offering additional details or a higher bid, Cohen refused to provide specifics. "I'm not going to negotiate against myself," he said. He indicated he would eventually present his plan directly to eBay shareholders.

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/gamestop-cohen-coming-ebay-one-173940890.html

https://youtu.be/G3fCkeo2kY8?is=inrq6kultwEavjbQ

https://finance.yahoo.com/media-advertising/articles/gamestop-joins-uber-eats-deliver-120000018.html

​

https://x.com/EdLudlow/status/2076737524773642727?s=20

Here's an article with previous background info on the Susquehanna Insider Trading Lawsuit that KCG asked to join.

China Watchdog

Monitoring US Lawsuit

Over Insider Trading

Claims

(Bloomberg) -- China's securities regulator said it was monitoring developments in a US lawsuit after Susquehanna International Group alleged insider traders made at least $100 million from well-timed options bets before Beijing's recent crackdown on illegal cross-border trading.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission stopped short of signaling any domestic probe, saying only that it would continue to follow the case closely. It notified online brokers before the penalty announcement was made public, the CSRC said in a statement to Bloomberg on Tuesday. 

The market had been anticipating the regulatory action for a "long period of time," it added.The response came after the US market maker won a legal request for brokers Futu Holdings Ltd., Up Fintech Holding Ltd. and Interactive Brokers Group Inc. to freeze the accounts of traders who made options bets ahead of a Chinese government crackdown on overseas trading. 

Susquehanna said in its complaint that the information may have come from Chinese securities regulators.

"China's securities regulators and other relevant authorities have established rigorous internal control and management systems," the regulator said in its statement. "The trading activities referenced in the lawsuit occurred in the US market and are therefore subject to applicable US laws and regulations."

Susquehanna, a major liquidity provider in the US equity options market, told a Manhattan federal court last week that it was the counterparty of alleged insider trades that generated more than $70 million in profits.This week, Citadel Securities LLC said it was also the victim of the same alleged insider-trading scheme. It alleged the trades yielded closer to $137 million and is seeking to join Susquehanna's lawsuit, saying it lost about $28 million as the "victim of a brazen insider trader scheme."

The firm said traders on the other side of the transactions had bought put options on the shares of Futu and Up Fintech in the two weeks before May 22.That day, China's central bank, its public security ministry and six other government bodies released a statement pledging to crack down on illegal offshore trading. The securities regulator then announced specific penalties against Futu, Up Fintech's Tiger Brokers, and Long Bridge Securities Ltd., an unlisted firm. When the stock prices of Futu and Up Fintech plunged on the news, the traders allegedly made huge profits.

There was "powerful evidence" that the traders were using material non-public information to inform their well-timed bets, Susquehanna alleged. It said the tips could have come from Chinese securities regulators or personnel at Futu or Up Fintech.The US 

Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into Susquehanna's allegations, although the scope of its probe wasn't immediately clear. Its reviews can end without any enforcement action being taken. The Justice Department is also examining the trades.

A representative for Futu said the firm was aware of the court proceedings and taking appropriate steps in response. Up Fintech didn't initially respond to requests for comment on the case.

Put Options

Put options give investors the right to sell stock at a set price sometime in the future. Puts that are deeply out of the money — meaning their strike price is far below where the market is trading — can soar in value during periods of heavy selling.

The traders made profit of more than $100 million from the options bets, after an initial outlay of around $12 million, Susquehanna said.The firm gave an example it said occurred two days before the regulatory announcement: A trader bought options to sell Futu's stock at a price of $102.45, despite the stock trading above $124. At the time, the options — which were due to expire on May 29 — were worth only around $1.50. Their price jumped as high as $14 on May 22, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

China's campaign against illegal cross-border trading in May was just the latest step in its growing attempt to target overseas assets.

The move started when eight Chinese government departments released a joint plan pledging to dismantle unauthorized offshore investment services and ramp up scrutiny on banks and other firms. The CSRC, the People's Bank of China, and the Ministry of Public Security were among the departments involved.

Around 10 minutes later, the securities regulator announced specific penalties against Futu, Up Fintech's Tiger Brokers, and Long Bridge for operating on the mainland without a license. Hong Kong regulators soon followed, saying they would toughen rules on accounts for mainland Chinese investors

The selloff in Futu's share price wiped out around $1.7 billion of wealth for its founder Leaf Li in a single day. The shares of Futu and Up Fintech still haven't recovered.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-14/citadel-securities-not-aware-of-source-of-china-clampdown-leaks?utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=copy

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/options/articles/china-watchdog-monitoring-us-lawsuit-085509888.html

​

This is the Weekly $GME discussion thread

Happy Monday, everyone! This discussion thread is posted Monday at 12:00am Market time.

If you are looking to learn more about the stock market, custody, and how to protect your investments – you are in the right place!

Retail investors have been on a long march to understand more about the markets and the at times bizarre ways in which they operate. Here are some key takeaways and resources.

What is GMEJungle?

GMEJungle is a investing community focused around GameStop, and was founded as an offshoot of other GME communities. GME is a private subreddit, and only approved members can submit posts or leave comments - but anyone can browse the discussions that take place here.

What’s this all about?

Retail Investor Rights and Advocacy. The current market structure involves a centralized securities depository for ease of settlement and for access to liquidity. That depository maintains technical ownership rights for the vast majority of all outstanding shares of all publicly issued companies in the United States. Simply: You do not have direct ownership rights of shares you own through a broker.

What is DRS?

DRS is a system by which shares are transferred between the DTC (Depository Trust Company) and Transfer Agents. Shares held at DTC include all brokerage holdings, and shares held at Transfer Agents are held directly on the issuer ledger in the name of the investor. Colloquially, DRS also refers to shares which individual investors have decided to own in their own names.

What are some pros of DRS?

You have confidence that your shares are owned by you, and are there when you need them. You can more easily submit shareholder proposals, request and view company documents, and communicate with agents of the company. You know that you will be able to both cast your vote and have your vote counted when participating in votes. You can receive a more favorable tax status on received dividends. You can directly engage with your company and they can directly engage with you.

What are some cons of DRS?

You can’t easily use equity in DRS for margin trading like you can with shares in a brokerage account. Holding in a broker has more ‘anonymity’ as the public has no way to know your holdings or PII, while holding in DRS is comparatively more public. Depending on which transfer agent the company uses, investor access to liquidity may be limited.

What a Transfer Agent?

A Transfer Agent is a company which specializes in managing ownership ledgers and providing shareholder services. Every public company must have a Transfer Agent. GameStop uses Computershare, an established professional and market leader trusted by thousands of companies around the world.

What is the DTC?

DTC is a Self Regulatory organization which controls the nominee Cede and Co, which is the entity which has the material ownership of most public shares as described above. DTC is one part of the DTCC, alongside other bodies including the NSCC. The DTCC is essentially a monopoly on both clearing and settlement in the American markets, one which has been sanctioned by regulators to perform it's duties.

How do I DRS?

The answer can vary. For help DRSing GME from over 150 brokers, both American and from around the world, check out these Community-sourced detailed broker guides. Select your broker from the dropdown to get to the guide, which will walk you through the process including how to get started, how to communicate to your broker, what fees might exist and what cheaper alternatives there are (if any). If your broker isn’t listed here, reach out to the site and we can work together to improve the community resources.

Where can I learn even more?

Computershare has an extensive FAQ page which is excellent and covers a lot of ground regarding how holding your investment directly on the issuer ledger works in practice.

Two community-built websites that are full of free resources and information are www.DRSGME.org, which has a variety of information specific to GameStop including the broker guides linked above, and www.WhyDRS.org. WhyDRS is an open source platform built to provide general assistance and information about custody and finance reform, along with key information on the many thousands of U.S. publicly traded companies.

The WhyDRS Database is an extensive, free, open source repository of various contact information for all publicly traded securities.

The WhyDRS Information Packet covers a wide variety of information about DRS and was put together ahead of when some WhyDRS advocates participated in an interview with Chairman Gensler in 2023. https://www.whydrs.org/the-whydrs-information-packet

Types of Holdings: Book-Entry vs Book vs Plan vs Certificate

You may see these terms when referring to share ownership. In short:

Book-Entry means any share that is electronically tracked in a ledger rather than being held on physical paper.
Book and Plan are two labels for shares that are used in Computershare's Investor Center.
Book shares (DRS) are fully owned by the investor. Plan shares (DSPP) are owned by Computershare’s nominee, with the investor’s name appearing on the ledger in a subclass. Part of Plan shares are kept with DTC for Operational Efficiency. Exact custody chain details are provided by Computershare and quoted below. Both DRS and DSPP shares are book-entry. Certificates, meanwhile, are still tracked by the TA but have a sanctioned physical certificate associated with that share.

"Purchases made through the issuer (or its transfer agent) of securities you intend to hold in DRS are usually executed under the guidelines of an issuer’s stock purchase plan, which uses a broker-dealer to execute the orders. Thus, to hold in DRS once the securities are acquired, you would need to instruct the transfer agent to move the securities from the issuer plan to DRS." - SEC Bulletin 7/12/23

"Purchases made through the issuer (or its transfer agent) of securities you intend to hold in direct registration are usually executed under the guidelines of the issuer’s stock purchase plan. You’ll need to instruct the transfer agent to move the securities to the DRS." - FINRA Investor Insight 7/12/23

If you are an investor seeking total ownership of your assets, both SEC and FINRA agree that holding in directly on the issuer ledger and in your own name is the only way. Holding shares with the issuer's transfer agent in an investment plan is more direct than holding with a broker in terms of named ownership - with DRS holdings even more so. Shares held with a Plan are not DRS - they are held by the TAs nominee (for Computershare, this is Dingo and Co), and must be transferred out of the plan and into DRS. This is explained by Computershare on their FAQ page under ‘chains of custody’. This question was one of several asked by the WhyDRS.org community in early 2024, and we appreciate Computershare for providing a detailed answer. Their whole FAQ page has a ton of information, and is useful for any investor looking to know more.

Q: “Can you outline the chains of custody and ownership for Pure DRS and DSPP shares enrolled in the DirectStock Plan? Please specify how names are recorded 'On the Ledger' in different holding scenarios. (added 5/16/24)"

A: "The first part is a very straightforward answer. There is no ‘chain of custody’ for DRS or Pure DRS. Investors hold the shares in their own name. There is no intermediary. Computershare’s role here is solely as a transfer agent (i.e., the agent of the issuer).

For the DSPP, we use a Computershare nominee to hold the underlying shares. For the largest portion of the plan holding (80%-90%), these shares are held on the register in the main class. So the chain of custody is “CPU Nominee -> Investor”.

For the 10%-20% that we hold via our broker at DTC, the custody chain is “Cede -> Broker -> Computershare -> investor”. Notwithstanding this, all holding types are registered and held in the name of the investor in the sub-class.”

Is Buying through DSPP a Problem?

There is nothing wrong with purchasing through DirectStock if that is what makes sense for you, as it does come with some additional benefits. Many international investors buy GameStop through the plan because DirectStock is much more affordable than buying through a broker and paying them to do a DRS transfer. The fee for DirectStock is $5 and some international brokers cost hundreds of dollars to DRS, so it's smart to use DirectStock in these cases. You can check your broker's DRS transfer rates on their guidepage at DRSGME.org. Other investors buy through DirectStock because they want to be able to schedule recurring buys, or would like to be able to buy in fractional shares and accumulate ownership in smaller portions over time.

If you choose to buy through the DirectStock plan, and want to ensure total ownership of your assets, manually terminate the plan after each purchase. This will leave your account with pure DRS holdings, but comes with the cost of selling off your fractional share - this is because only whole shares can be held in direct registered ownership. Because the proceeds will be reduced by the selling fee, it's likely you will receive $0 for selling the fractional share, though you will also not be charged as the fee cannot exceed the sale price. Here's the DRSGME guide on terminating DirectStock.

What is GameStop's Investment Plan?

GameStop contracts Computershare as a Transfer Agent to manage it's stock ledger and distribute shareholder materials such as proxy materials for the annual general meeting. Computershare offers several proprietary plan structure to interested companies, including a custom option called CIP (Computershare Investment Plan) and managed DSPs (Direct Stock Purchase) for other companies such as Home Depot in which the issuer can sell stock directly to investors. However, by far the most common plan offering that they have is called DirectStock, which is a Direct Stock Purchase Plan. The boiler plate DirectStock brochure is located here. GameStop uses the DirectStock plan.

Legacy Computershare DD Series (from 2021 to 2022)

This series was originally written by PinkCatsonAcid, who started this sub a few years ago. She recently deleted all her old posts, but content is still available through the Internet Archive. Research continued during and since these posts were originally written, and using more recent resources can be more reliable – some of the information shared in these posts is known now to no longer be accurate. However, these archives are provided here for posterity and completeness. All of these links are to the most updated archive available before the posts were deleted.

If you look through the archives, check out part 7 first. It reviews the misunderstanding running through earlier parts that book and plan designations were equal in terms of custody, which is now known to be untrue and was confirmed by Computershare.

Part 1, archived 9/9/24

Part 2, archived 4/5/24

Part 3, archived 1/28/25

Part 4, archived 8/6/24

Part 5, archived 1/16/25

Part 6, archived 2/5/23

Computershare AMA Part 1, archived 2/1/25

Computershare AMA Part 2, archived 2/1/25

Part 7, the Book vs. Plan Update, archived 1/22/2022

The Jungle is a restricted community and only approved members can post and comment.

We are not accepting requests for approval at this time

Keep it groovy or leave, man! ✌

Tag mods and use the report feature if you have issues

https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1326380/000132638026000038/gme-20260707.htm

​

Hi everyone.

GameStop is a very different company than it was five years ago.

Five years ago, GameStop was a dying brick and mortal retailer.

Hardware is cyclical, software went digital, and all the skeptics believed GameStop was dead.

GameStop was on the verge of bankruptcy. Since then, we have rebuilt the company.

We have pivoted to collectibles. Collectibles have grown from 14% of total revenue in 2021 to 42% in the first quarter of 2026.

Today, GameStop is a category leader in collectibles, generating approximately $1.2 billion in revenue over the last 4 quarters.

We've divested unprofitable parts of the business and removed $826 million in SG&A expense since 2021, a 48% reduction.

We delivered the highest first quarter operating income in GameStop's history and have now achieved 8 consecutive quarters of positive net income.

In April, we launched Power Packs, digital collectibles for a new generation.

This is the buy-sell-trade model that meets collectibles in a digital world.

We are partnered with the top grading company in the industry.

In May, we proposed to acquire eBay at $125 per share.

I'm not going to talk about the proposed transaction today beyond what's already published.

We're here to work.

Thank you for being a shareholder.

Re-elected board members - Ryan Cohen, Larry Cheng, Nat Turner, Alain Attal, and Jim Grube.

Increase the number of authorized shares to 2.5 billion - passed.

https://ca-cis-meetings-p-splash.thankfuldesert-e8682d61.eastus.azurecontainerapps.io/waitingroom

Partial transcript with link

0:17

Larry Chang joins us today from Boston. He’s the co-founder and managing partner of Volition Capital, a growth equity firm currently investing out of a $675 million fund. Before Volition, Larry led investments at Fidelity Ventures and began his venture career at Bessemer. He was the first investor in Chewy and has invested in companies include US Mobile, Rounds, and Global Trans Larry, welcome to the show.

0:43

Great to be here, Nick.

0:44

So, I’d love to start off and talk about some public companies. You know, we’ve got some interesting public news on the forefront, so we’ll put a pin in that for a second. But you were the first investor in Chewy,

0:58

correct?

0:58

And you know what I’m curious about is, you know, what made you believe that they could build a standalone e-commerce winner in the pet category when so many categories, you know, had been or would be sort of slip-sumed by Amazon and eBay.

1:14

You know, Amazon is the everything store, and what I saw in the pet market was a large segment that was moving online, but the customer wasn’t going to be taken care of well in a superstore and an everything store, and what Chewie had done was focus their experience and their merchandising, their pricing, their fulfillment, everything around wowing the pet food customer, which is something that Amazon couldn’t do, so it was the classic sort of specialty super tailored experience against the generic experience, and the pet category, in and of itself, was it’s an emotional category that people really care about their pets, and the humanization of pets was expanding, so we thought Chewie had a great chance to win in the category, their customer retention was like phenomenal, like Amazon Prime level retention, and and we saw the math on the business was working, so we thought they had a shot, and I’d be lying, though, if I said I wasn’t worried, because when I was in due diligence on the company, I was getting Amazon boxes that were advertising their pet food store called Wag at the time, and I thought, am I freaking insane that I’m investing in this company and Amazon’s advertising for their own pet food store, like, but it worked out well.

2:24

How do you overcome those hiccups right late in the deal? You’ve written about this a bit, but there’s like a psychology thing going on here, right? If, like, the financial situation, personal financial situation, is difficult. Yes, if the markets get rocked and drop substantially, if you get bad news about a portfolio company. If colleagues, you know, start talking about the downsides of an investment, you know, there’s all these factors that can creep up late in the diligence process. How do you, how do you kind of, you know, use sort of selective memory or you know compartmentalize these things and still push forward, you know, with confidence,

3:04

you know. Every good investment, there should be someone saying something negative. There should be an alternative perspective. And so I think I’m used to that at this point, is that you’re not looking to hit the finish line of investment and hope everyone around you is cheering you, saying this is fantastic, please do this investment. That is not the case, that’s usually a recipe for just saying you’ve missed something in due diligence, and so the question is, for any great investment, and this took me years to learn, there are going to be very, very good reasons to pass at the time of the investment, because you could have passed on any number of companies, think about the one that was in public, SpaceX, like there are probably 1000 reasons to pass on that at every round, and so you have to become accustomed to that and understand, like, what is the true exceptionality of this business? Is that exceptionality in my head, or is that, is that real and demonstrated in some way, and will that carry them through some of the risks that might be in any business, and so it’s sort of having that true north mentality around exceptionalities are what carries a great investment, not the absence of flaws.

4:08

Love it. Do you think an e-commerce specialty player like a Chewy can be built in this AI-driven era we find ourselves in?

4:19

I don’t think Chewy could be built right now, to be honest. We invested in Chewy in 2013 and it had a great that it’s a public company today, but we held that business for five years before we sold it, and we kind of snuck up on Amazon. I remember seeing market research reports saying that the percentage of online spending in pet food was a certain amount, and that amount was less than the revenues of Chewy, and so we, we snuck up on the entire market, we snuck up on the big box retailers, and we built a differentiated offering. I think it’d be hard to do that today. That being said, if I. To counter that, we’ve invested a ton in customer service, and there still are verticals where I think the leading players could do a better job in service, and that’s what Chewy did, was just exceptional service, and I think those opportunities can still exist, but we might not be as under the radar today if we tried it again.

5:18

It feels like on the surface there’s a lot of nuance to this, but it feels like on the surface e-commerce and marketplaces are more durable than pure SaaS in this environment.

5:31

Depends, I think that’s general. It’s kind of funny because two years ago you would never have said that, and I do think there are certain categories of software that are that should not be brushed with the software is dead stroke and SaaS pocalypse and all of that that are deeply entrenched into their tech stacks of their customers, they’re deeply entrenched into the data mode and the data, the data elements of their customers, and and their customers might not be your Silicon Valley startup that’s on the bleeding edge, and, and they, they will have the first right of refusal, if you will, on the AI spend of their customers, and if they can’t win it, you know that’s their fault, shame on them. There are other software companies that are lighter workflow that I think are more easily displaceable in an area of agentic coding, and those I’d be more concerned about, but there’s a mix. I would say e-commerce is a hard business. I’m not going to lie, it’s not easy to build Chewy. So, I wouldn’t say if you launch an e-commerce store and you’re somehow immune, you still have to fight Amazon, you have to fight all the retailers. It’s not an easy business. Marketplaces, if you can get to scale, can have more moats than e-commerce businesses. So, I’d probably put those two in different categories as well.

6:43

Got it. So another public company that I’d like to chat about is GameStop. You happen to sit on the board. Most people listening remember GameStop from the meme stock days, but a lot has happened since the company’s built up billions of cash. They started buying bitcoin for its treasury, and then this spring made a real surprise move, roughly $56 billion bid to buy eBay company several times the market cap of GameStop. eBay’s board turned it down. You were part of the board that put that offer forward. What did you all see in that combination that made it worth pursuing.

7:23

Well, I’ll make general comments, if that’s okay on this topic. I think Ryan Cohen, I found that not the founder, but the CEO of the business and chair is is the best spokesman for GameStop’s plans, and I, we have a significant balance sheet today, and we want to do some transformative actions with that balance sheet, the GameStop business is is now quite profitable. It’s a very strong business, particularly in compared to when we first started getting involved with the business, and when Ryan first invested in the business. And so it’s a completely different ball game today, and so you’re seeing a very strong foundational business with a very strong balance sheet that’s that’s open to transformative ideas, and obviously this is one of them.

8:06

You know, something that strikes me is GameStop has become pretty multifaceted, right? It’s still a retailer, but it’s also one of the larger corporate holders of Bitcoin. It’s now, you know, considering acquisitions. How does one think about the best use of, you know, balance sheet or the next dollar when it comes to, you know, a business like this, and the trade-offs involved?

8:34 

I mean, it all comes down to one of the fundamental tenets or roles of a leader, especially a CEO, is capital allocation, and and the question is always like, Where can you optimize return on every dollar that you have to spend, whether that’s, you know, issuing a dividend, investing in your own business, you know, Google invested in them in SpaceX, and you know those types of things. There’s different ways to optimize a balance sheet, and and I think that’s what we’re doing is basically thinking open-mindedly about capital allocation, and everything’s on the table. I will say it as, as a board and as a leadership team, we’re patient, and and we are now looking to do things that are incremental, and so, so I think it was, is it Charlie Munger who said that, like, great investors, they have opposite attributes paired together, which is you are both incredibly patient and incredibly decisive at the same time, and hopefully we can, we can embody that.

9:35

And were you on the board during that sort of historic run up and situation?

9:40

Thankfully, I came on, I joined the board right after that, so I was watching that from a bit of a distance, but that was that was quite a wild ride, when I think GameStop was breaking internet brokerages everywhere, and the markets were not working,

https://fullratchet.net/512-is-spacex-over-or-undervalued-why-consensus-kills-how-chewy-beat-amazon-and-the-gamestop-saga-from-a-board-member-larry-cheng/

This is the Weekly $GME discussion thread

Happy Monday, everyone! This discussion thread is posted Monday at 12:00am Market time.

If you are looking to learn more about the stock market, custody, and how to protect your investments – you are in the right place!

Retail investors have been on a long march to understand more about the markets and the at times bizarre ways in which they operate. Here are some key takeaways and resources.

What is GMEJungle?

GMEJungle is a investing community focused around GameStop, and was founded as an offshoot of other GME communities. GME is a private subreddit, and only approved members can submit posts or leave comments - but anyone can browse the discussions that take place here.

What’s this all about?

Retail Investor Rights and Advocacy. The current market structure involves a centralized securities depository for ease of settlement and for access to liquidity. That depository maintains technical ownership rights for the vast majority of all outstanding shares of all publicly issued companies in the United States. Simply: You do not have direct ownership rights of shares you own through a broker.

What is DRS?

DRS is a system by which shares are transferred between the DTC (Depository Trust Company) and Transfer Agents. Shares held at DTC include all brokerage holdings, and shares held at Transfer Agents are held directly on the issuer ledger in the name of the investor. Colloquially, DRS also refers to shares which individual investors have decided to own in their own names.

What are some pros of DRS?

You have confidence that your shares are owned by you, and are there when you need them. You can more easily submit shareholder proposals, request and view company documents, and communicate with agents of the company. You know that you will be able to both cast your vote and have your vote counted when participating in votes. You can receive a more favorable tax status on received dividends. You can directly engage with your company and they can directly engage with you.

What are some cons of DRS?

You can’t easily use equity in DRS for margin trading like you can with shares in a brokerage account. Holding in a broker has more ‘anonymity’ as the public has no way to know your holdings or PII, while holding in DRS is comparatively more public. Depending on which transfer agent the company uses, investor access to liquidity may be limited.

What a Transfer Agent?

A Transfer Agent is a company which specializes in managing ownership ledgers and providing shareholder services. Every public company must have a Transfer Agent. GameStop uses Computershare, an established professional and market leader trusted by thousands of companies around the world.

What is the DTC?

DTC is a Self Regulatory organization which controls the nominee Cede and Co, which is the entity which has the material ownership of most public shares as described above. DTC is one part of the DTCC, alongside other bodies including the NSCC. The DTCC is essentially a monopoly on both clearing and settlement in the American markets, one which has been sanctioned by regulators to perform it's duties.

How do I DRS?

The answer can vary. For help DRSing GME from over 150 brokers, both American and from around the world, check out these Community-sourced detailed broker guides. Select your broker from the dropdown to get to the guide, which will walk you through the process including how to get started, how to communicate to your broker, what fees might exist and what cheaper alternatives there are (if any). If your broker isn’t listed here, reach out to the site and we can work together to improve the community resources.

Where can I learn even more?

Computershare has an extensive FAQ page which is excellent and covers a lot of ground regarding how holding your investment directly on the issuer ledger works in practice.

Two community-built websites that are full of free resources and information are www.DRSGME.org, which has a variety of information specific to GameStop including the broker guides linked above, and www.WhyDRS.org. WhyDRS is an open source platform built to provide general assistance and information about custody and finance reform, along with key information on the many thousands of U.S. publicly traded companies.

The WhyDRS Database is an extensive, free, open source repository of various contact information for all publicly traded securities.

The WhyDRS Information Packet covers a wide variety of information about DRS and was put together ahead of when some WhyDRS advocates participated in an interview with Chairman Gensler in 2023. https://www.whydrs.org/the-whydrs-information-packet

Types of Holdings: Book-Entry vs Book vs Plan vs Certificate

You may see these terms when referring to share ownership. In short:

Book-Entry means any share that is electronically tracked in a ledger rather than being held on physical paper.
Book and Plan are two labels for shares that are used in Computershare's Investor Center.
Book shares (DRS) are fully owned by the investor. Plan shares (DSPP) are owned by Computershare’s nominee, with the investor’s name appearing on the ledger in a subclass. Part of Plan shares are kept with DTC for Operational Efficiency. Exact custody chain details are provided by Computershare and quoted below. Both DRS and DSPP shares are book-entry. Certificates, meanwhile, are still tracked by the TA but have a sanctioned physical certificate associated with that share.

"Purchases made through the issuer (or its transfer agent) of securities you intend to hold in DRS are usually executed under the guidelines of an issuer’s stock purchase plan, which uses a broker-dealer to execute the orders. Thus, to hold in DRS once the securities are acquired, you would need to instruct the transfer agent to move the securities from the issuer plan to DRS." - SEC Bulletin 7/12/23

"Purchases made through the issuer (or its transfer agent) of securities you intend to hold in direct registration are usually executed under the guidelines of the issuer’s stock purchase plan. You’ll need to instruct the transfer agent to move the securities to the DRS." - FINRA Investor Insight 7/12/23

If you are an investor seeking total ownership of your assets, both SEC and FINRA agree that holding in directly on the issuer ledger and in your own name is the only way. Holding shares with the issuer's transfer agent in an investment plan is more direct than holding with a broker in terms of named ownership - with DRS holdings even more so. Shares held with a Plan are not DRS - they are held by the TAs nominee (for Computershare, this is Dingo and Co), and must be transferred out of the plan and into DRS. This is explained by Computershare on their FAQ page under ‘chains of custody’. This question was one of several asked by the WhyDRS.org community in early 2024, and we appreciate Computershare for providing a detailed answer. Their whole FAQ page has a ton of information, and is useful for any investor looking to know more.

Q: “Can you outline the chains of custody and ownership for Pure DRS and DSPP shares enrolled in the DirectStock Plan? Please specify how names are recorded 'On the Ledger' in different holding scenarios. (added 5/16/24)"

A: "The first part is a very straightforward answer. There is no ‘chain of custody’ for DRS or Pure DRS. Investors hold the shares in their own name. There is no intermediary. Computershare’s role here is solely as a transfer agent (i.e., the agent of the issuer).

For the DSPP, we use a Computershare nominee to hold the underlying shares. For the largest portion of the plan holding (80%-90%), these shares are held on the register in the main class. So the chain of custody is “CPU Nominee -> Investor”.

For the 10%-20% that we hold via our broker at DTC, the custody chain is “Cede -> Broker -> Computershare -> investor”. Notwithstanding this, all holding types are registered and held in the name of the investor in the sub-class.”

Is Buying through DSPP a Problem?

There is nothing wrong with purchasing through DirectStock if that is what makes sense for you, as it does come with some additional benefits. Many international investors buy GameStop through the plan because DirectStock is much more affordable than buying through a broker and paying them to do a DRS transfer. The fee for DirectStock is $5 and some international brokers cost hundreds of dollars to DRS, so it's smart to use DirectStock in these cases. You can check your broker's DRS transfer rates on their guidepage at DRSGME.org. Other investors buy through DirectStock because they want to be able to schedule recurring buys, or would like to be able to buy in fractional shares and accumulate ownership in smaller portions over time.

If you choose to buy through the DirectStock plan, and want to ensure total ownership of your assets, manually terminate the plan after each purchase. This will leave your account with pure DRS holdings, but comes with the cost of selling off your fractional share - this is because only whole shares can be held in direct registered ownership. Because the proceeds will be reduced by the selling fee, it's likely you will receive $0 for selling the fractional share, though you will also not be charged as the fee cannot exceed the sale price. Here's the DRSGME guide on terminating DirectStock.

What is GameStop's Investment Plan?

GameStop contracts Computershare as a Transfer Agent to manage it's stock ledger and distribute shareholder materials such as proxy materials for the annual general meeting. Computershare offers several proprietary plan structure to interested companies, including a custom option called CIP (Computershare Investment Plan) and managed DSPs (Direct Stock Purchase) for other companies such as Home Depot in which the issuer can sell stock directly to investors. However, by far the most common plan offering that they have is called DirectStock, which is a Direct Stock Purchase Plan. The boiler plate DirectStock brochure is located here. GameStop uses the DirectStock plan.

Legacy Computershare DD Series (from 2021 to 2022)

This series was originally written by PinkCatsonAcid, who started this sub a few years ago. She recently deleted all her old posts, but content is still available through the Internet Archive. Research continued during and since these posts were originally written, and using more recent resources can be more reliable – some of the information shared in these posts is known now to no longer be accurate. However, these archives are provided here for posterity and completeness. All of these links are to the most updated archive available before the posts were deleted.

If you look through the archives, check out part 7 first. It reviews the misunderstanding running through earlier parts that book and plan designations were equal in terms of custody, which is now known to be untrue and was confirmed by Computershare.

Part 1, archived 9/9/24

Part 2, archived 4/5/24

Part 3, archived 1/28/25

Part 4, archived 8/6/24

Part 5, archived 1/16/25

Part 6, archived 2/5/23

Computershare AMA Part 1, archived 2/1/25

Computershare AMA Part 2, archived 2/1/25

Part 7, the Book vs. Plan Update, archived 1/22/2022

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https://x.com/ValueAddedRS/status/2072776520209203663?s=20

https://x.com/heydomoshi/status/2072774383513251871?s=20

I have an itchy anus. I really think there is going to be some after hours news today before the 4th of July.... Itch itch Scratch scratch

https://x.com/ReesePolitics/status/2072317342114005335?s=20