I’ll try to express my core points about GME – feel free to critique any of my conclusions / statements. Hopefully my analysis has provided some evidence that the mean value is around $10-$20 per share. I'll start by explaining the progression to the mispricing of $6.09 today from a more reasonable $12-$15 earlier this year.

Gamestop hired Perella Weinburg to explore sale w/ Apollo and Sycamore as two main suitors in early 2019. Talks fell through as a vague statement - “GameStop’s Board has now terminated efforts to pursue a sale of the company due to the lack of available financing on terms that would be commercially acceptable to a prospective acquiror”. This implies that Gamestop got into the final talks with Sycamore or Apollo, and one of them wasn't able to perform a leveraged buyout to the degree they expected - a small misstep which resulted to where we are at today. Note this would have been anywhere from ~$15-$20 earlier this year.

A subsequent removal of their "high yield" dividend by the new management team (expected given their method of compensation - long-vesting options and other equity that is negatively affected by a dividend) resulted in a sharp share price drop, from $5 to a bottom of $3.21 after a tender offer with >40% proration factor. Given that Gamestop's institutional holders were full of dividend related ETF/index funds/mutual funds, this constituted a massive forced selling process, not to mention the 75% of the market cap short we have gotten to today pushing the price down (highest in the market as of October 2019).

Next, we will discuss the multitude of misconceptions that have pushed the price down and balooned the short interest

Misperception - Gamestop has a big sales problem - who shops there anymore?

Gamestop’s SG&A has been allowed to saturate above gross profit levels consistently for a full 7 year console cycle - causing operating profit compression. Since the last console release (end of 2013), Gamestop's SG&A has been allowed to bloat with corporate overhead / non-incremental expenses. Excluding double digit gross profit declines in 2017 and 2019, gamestop's gross profit has actually been flat (-1% to 5% annually).

Misperception: SSS / Preowned Declines Will Flip Margins

Gamestop’s New Management is aggressively cutting unprofitable (~5-10%) stores, and taking advantage of the short term lease profile discussed later. SG&A & Operational Efficiencies of 200m by the end of 2020 exploited widen the operating profit margin from 12.8% to 24.3%. This is very achievable by mgmt considering they have completed 40m out of 100m guided in their first quarter (Q3) and guided up this level to 200m by the end of 2020. Late Stage in 10 year console cycle & confirmation of disk drive in both big console releases next year will stave off gross profit declines temporarily.

Misperception: Gamestop is the next Blockbuster

BlockBuster was saddled with high interest debt, maturing in 2009/2010 (900m), and were unable to refinance during the financial crisis. BlockBuster also had razor thin margins and high interest payments well before their bankruptcy in 2010. Despite aggressively cutting SG&A, store count only fell from ~9000 to ~6500, suggesting long operating lease durations prevented a more rapid scale-down.

As stated by the former Blockbuster CEO - "With $350 million in debt that was due in the first quarter of 2009. It was something Keyes wasn’t worried about because he was planning to refinance the debt at a later date. But now, with banks unwilling to lend, and nervous movie studios changing their credit terms from 90 days to cash, Blockbuster had only one option." Note: Gamestop instead has a net cash position!

Misperception: Radioshack is the next Blockbuster

Radioshack did not close stores with ~4300 stores in the U.S. in 2015 and in some instances 25 in a 25 mile radius (Sacramento, CA). This is due to a poor loan with strict covenants on closing stores. Extreme management issues, considering 7 CEO changes from 2005-2014 with aggressive marketing & reinventing spend for each new charlatan. 6.8 m in executive comp in 2009. SG&A stayed flat to up despite rapidly declining gross profit, no cyclical aspect of their business decline (like the console cycle with Gamestop).Indemnification Contracts removed accountability from the new management teams, and made them poor stewards of Radioshack investors' capital.

Misperception: Xbox Live / Playstation Store (Streaming) Risk

Digital Games are already a well-baked in trend, but there are structural discounts to buying physical -> resale value / unique offerings. Furthermore, multiple studies show that >60% of console gamers prefer buying physical. For example, FIFA 20 retails at $60, and FIFA 19 has a $9 value on Gamestop trade-in or $12 on eBay (structurally higher due to the time/cost requirement of packaging and shipping on the part of the seller). Since next years FIFA 21 should yield a similar trade-in value for FIFA 20, this presents a 15-20% structural discount in buying physical, and redeeming the game upon the next release.

Gamestop is wisely praying on exclusive digital items with their new management team, like the "Fornite Merry Mint Pickaxe" with epic rarity, requiring consumers to go to a Gamestop location and purchase a collectible (driving same store sales). This move presents a large opportunity, and has been also repeated with a "Free Legendary Shiny Pokemon" for Pokemon Sun and Moon and 3 free Cowboys Madden Ultimate Team players in Madden 20.

Another common statement by short investors - "I haven't been to Gamestop in forever - they must have fallen into irrelevancy". Nevertheless, Gamestop still holds 36.3% of console sales in the U.S. with 2.725 B out of a 7.5 B market. Although this market share is not suggestive of a moat - it is interesting to see how consumer's have still chosen Gamestop despite the long-ingested trend of Amazon & rival retailers such as Best Buy entering this near-commodity space.

Additionally, weak numbers such as a 40% drop in hardware sales seem to only lend fault to Gamestop vs. their competitors. A quick look at statistica's useful charts on PS4 and Xbox One sales show a severe freeze-up in these console sales since Dec 2018 - a similar effect to what we saw in 2013 before these consoles were released. Consumers tend to stop buying consoles once they hear a new console release is within a year in horizon - in this case Xbox Scarlett 5 - both confirmed in Holiday 2020 (also both have disc drives!!!). We've seen this rapid cyclicality before, but the market thinks it's all secular this time around.

Gamestop's management has hinted at an almost complete closure of their international stores (>1200), with direct rumors of closings in the entire Greater-Nordic region this year (~300 stores) and further evidence in their most recent conference call. Digging into their Milan, Italy and Brisbane, Australia distribution facilities, both could fetch ~97.8 per square foot (the price Blackstone is paying on average), indicating that the sale of these facilities could provide Gamestop with another 30m in cash.

Management also seems very promising - sticking to their word in cutting SG&A aggressively as many activists have urged. They are already about 20% completed (as per conference call) of a 200m sg&a overhead cut, a seemingly routine operation for George Sherman. Digging into conference calls at his time in Advanced Auto Parts, the stock rallied almost 142% during his tenure due to a laser-focus on operating profit goals - stating that he will "chop" intently to meet targets.

New operating lease standards force Gamestop to put >700 m of new "debt" onto their balance sheet, forcing EV numbers up and causing retail / systematic selling from investors using formulas/multiples blindly. Confusion around EV seems to permeate through VIC / seeking alpha. Nevertheless, the average operating lease duration is only 2 years, and mandatory lease payments following an almost exponential distribution. The real question is should this "debt" with zero incremental interest payments (already included on the income statement) and a 2 year duration be treated as debt? I would disagree, especially considering the store closures we will see from management and the fact that these "operating lease debts" resemble accounts payable rather than long-term debt.

Additionally, most of the big/popular console games are very demanding in download size - try 92 GB for read dead redemption 2. Many consumers either don't want to wait for that mega-download on their console or simply don't have the bandwidth.

Gamestop also has a massive short squeeze opportunity. With >400 m in cash at the bottom of their working capital cycle, 75% short interest (short shares / shares outstanding), and a volatile >30% cost to borrow which peaked over 100% on interactive brokers for some periods. An existing 237m auth may be being employed as we speak, but with a meager 550m market cap, this presents a massive opportunity for management if they play their cards right. I have faith, given they already employed a dutch-auction tender offer and it aligns with their incentives to employ their buyback plan aggressively, and have already stated and acted as they will not blow away their cash.

Finally, the recent offers for Vitamin Shoppe and Chico's (two low-margin retailers with similar store profiles) both resulted in 10, 11% FCF yields per store respectively. Note: this is eerily similar to a $20 per share for GME offer that could have been fulfilled earlier this year by Sycamore / Apollo at a 11% FCF yield per store. Although the Chico's offer was turned down by management, a $20 offer today would make the stock a 3.3x today - even so the news has been relatively good this year - for example consoles were confirmed to have disk drives and come out in Holiday 2020.

I hope this provides more clarity on GME - even very conservative DCFs yield around a $7.5 per share outcome without the short-squeeze hypothesis (10% discount rate, small improvement in FCF due to console release, then 20% gross profit declines thereafer). I'm not trying to say Gamestop will make a great comeback, but a measured decline (unlike the behaviors of Radioshack's management) will be extremely accretive to the equity holders today.

Catalysts:

Share Repurchases (237 m authorization, 63 m of which was already used in a dutch-auction tender offer)

Short Squeeze (highest short interest in the market, high cost of borrowing emerging)

Buyout (Revisited by Apollo / Sycamore or some megafund alternative)

Rebound in 2020 due to the new console releases driving not only hardware but software sales

Fulfillment of SG&A cuts trickling down to earnings

Edit: Thanks for gold!