Bed Bath & Beyond CFO Gustavo Arnal falls to death in New York
Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss news that Bed Bath & Beyond CFO Gustavo Arnal has died after jumping from a high-rise in New York City.
Video Transcript
[AUDIO LOGO]
BRIAN SOZZI: This morning, we continue to follow the tragic news out of Bed Bath & Beyond. Bed Bath & Beyond CFO Gustavo Arnal fell to his death, Friday afternoon, after witnesses say he jumped from his 18th story New York City apartment. Arnal joined Bed Bath & Beyond in 2020, brought on by former CEO Mark Tritton. He leaves behind a wife and children. He was 52-years-old.
Julie, I've been talking to people all weekend long about this story. It's tragic. I made it my Morning Brief newsletter. I encourage everyone to go to the Yahoo Finance page and just learn about Gustavo's life. You know, I've been talking to people that worked with Gustavo for many years, mentioned as a family man, a strong leader, a team builder.
And a lot of folks that I've talked to told me this was completely out of character. This is not who Gustavo was. But again, I go into this more in our newsletter this morning. But this is a shocking situation. I think now you're seeing Bed Bath & me share-- Bed Bath & Beyond shares under severe pressure in the markets.
There has been some chatter that Bed Bath is going to come out at some point today and announce who will replace Gustavo. Is it-- is it a team of-- is it a team of people? Is it one person? But now all eyes are focusing back on the public company aspect. Bed Bath is struggling mightily. And now, you've lost a key leader-- a key finance leader on that team who is expected just to navigate a company through what looks to be a major restructuring.
JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, I mean, obviously you have two stories that are going on here. You have the human story, which I thought you did a great job of--
BRIAN SOZZI: Thank you.
JULIE HYMAN: --delving into in that Morning Brief, talking to people who had worked with him in the past. And then you have what's going on at the company, which we have covered, and you especially have covered extensively the various issues.
And to your point, whatever the reason that this has happened, to your point, it now leaves yet another absence in management at the firm at a time when there has been enormous turmoil in management at the company, from Mark Tritton leaving and a board member stepping in.
The chief merchandising officer left. You had-- Arnal had also been responsible for chief accounting officer. He then stopped doing that role. Somebody else took on that. I mean, it just-- there's just been an enormous amount of turnover.
BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, and let's bring up a couple of points here. First, we should say, Bed Bath & Beyond did not respond to a request for comment on Arnal's death to me or Yahoo Finance. And the number two, also seeing people focus in on a new shareholder lawsuit that was filed in DC by a shareholder who claims that they lost about $106,000, essentially saying that Arnal, Ryan Cohen-- who is an activist investor in Bed Bath & Beyond-- and JPMorgan, which facilitates-- or has worked with Bed Bath & Beyond, also facilitates allegedly Cohen's various investing initiatives, were in cahoots to do a pump and dump scheme.
Now, I in the piece on the Morning Brief this morning, I posted the link to this case. To me, now, I'm no Matlock, but it does seem thin. Bed Bath & Beyond told me they deny these allegations. They see no basis for any of them. But still, something else to keep in the back of your mind in the days ahead. And there is Bed Bath & Beyond's statement to me earlier-- I mean, late last night.
JULIE HYMAN: And leaving the suit aside for a moment. The facts that we know, right? We can say-- we can tell people what we know. We don't know if this lawsuit has any merit.
BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah.
JULIE HYMAN: We don't know if it will go anywhere. What we do know from filings is that Arnal did sell shares in Bed Bath & Beyond. He sold more than 55,000 shares in multiple transactions in mid-August. And he, again, revealed that in filings. He made about $1.4 million from those sales. But he still had more than 250,000 shares of Bed Bath & Beyond.
So he was by no means exiting his position here. So that's something that we should note as well. And I don't believe he's the only investor certainly to have exited his stake. I mean, Ryan Cohen himself sold shares--
BRIAN SOZZI: There's a lot of scrutiny--
JULIE HYMAN: --in Bed Bath & Beyond.
BRIAN SOZZI: --right now on Ryan Cohen. I think it will be-- it's going to be a challenging end to the year for Ryan Cohen. Maybe because it should be.
JULIE HYMAN: Well, and it's a challenging end to the year for Bed Bath &--
BRIAN SOZZI: Absolutely.
JULIE HYMAN: --Beyond as well.
Absolutely
