What a Bed Bath & Beyond activist investor thinks about the GameStop chair’s plan

Activist investor Jonathan Duskin at Macellum Capital Management joined Yahoo Finance Live to discuss why GameStop Chairman Ryan Cohen increased his stake in Bed Bath & Beyond. Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi explains Duskin's review of the retail move.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Well, we have been watching a new activist situation with Bed, Bath & Beyond. Of course, it involves Ryan Cohen who also got involved with GameStop, but there's another activist who also had targeted Bed, Bath & Beyond in the past. And Brian Sozzi, you had the chance to talk to him.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, I call him the OG Bed, Bath & Beyond activist, and that is Jonathan Duskin, who has been waging almost a two-year battle against the fumbling and bumbling management team over there at Kohl's. But I asked Duskin about his-- just to get his take on what he thinks of Cohen's new attack on Bed, Bath & Beyond. Here's what he said.

JONATHAN DUSKIN: I interpreted his letter a little bit differently. I don't know that he wants to sell the whole thing. I think he's talking about exploring strategic alternatives that might include something with BBY. Maybe it also includes selling the business. I think we've articulated that there's a lot of value in BBY for a long time. If you look back to some of our early letters we wrote years ago, we thought BBY was worth more than the whole business, and we believe that even more firmly now. Remember, BBY was struggling when Mark and the new board stepped in here, and they really did a great job of turning BBY around.

BRIAN SOZZI: And Julie, it was Duskin's campaign. He ultimately settled in 2019, but it led to a complete overhaul of the company's management team, ushered in Mark Tritton who came in and, I believe within the first three months, fired most of the executive team because they were really, really terrible. Also helped lead an overhaul of that board here. Now Duskin does tell me that he's open to working with Cohen here on Bed, Bath & Beyond. He doesn't know Cohen, but he essentially invited him to hit up his celly.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, I'm really curious to see if that would happen, considering how Cohen-- I don't know-- I think of him as somewhat of a mysterious figure, given the playbook with GameStop. And so but I don't know. We could see a different situation here.

BRIAN SOZZI: Sure could. Duskin's open to it.