Bed Bath & Beyond exec ID’d as Tribeca ‘Jenga Building’ jumper being sued in alleged pump in dump stock scheme

Sad day in history.

After hearing of the closing of major Bed Bath  & Beyond stores, it’s not super shocking to hear of the suicide death of one of it’s top employees, who probably felt like a failure, despite being a millionaire.

The New York Post Reports: The chief financial officer of troubled Bed Bath & Beyond has been identified as the man who jumped to his death from the iconic new Tribeca skyscraper known as the “Jenga Building,”

Gustavo Arnal, 52, who was also an executive vice president for the struggling home goods retailer, plunged from the 18th floor of 56 Leonard Street on Friday, police sources said.

The 60-story building is best known for its purposely misaligned apartments stacked atop each other, resembling the popular game “Jenga.”

PROFIT & LOSS OF HUMAN LIFE

On Aug. 16, Arnal sold 42,513 shares in company stock for a little over a $1 million, according to MarketBeat.com

Arnal joined Bed Bath & Beyond in 2020. He previously worked as chief financial officer for cosmetics giant Avon based out of London and had a 20-year career working overseas for Procter & Gamble.

In 2021, he made more than $2.9 million via Bed Bath & Beyond, including $775,000 in salary and the rest in stock awards, according to InsiderTrades.com.

Bed Bath & Beyond has recently been facing turbulence.

Shares in the Union, New Jersey-based business lost nearly a quarter of their value Wednesday, after the company announced a restructuring that includes store closures, layoffs and a possible stock offering.

The company said it has obtained more than $500 million in new financing and was reducing 20% of its workforce. It plans to close about 150 namesake stores but will keep its buybuy BABY chain.

LETTING GO

In mid-August, shareholder activist Ryan Cohen, the billionaire co-founder of online pet-products retailer Chewy Inc., sold his shares in Bed Bath & Beyond after taking on a 10% stake just months before and pledging to make big changes.

The “Jenga Building” features 19-foot ceilings, double-height windows, white oak and stone floors, a gas fireplace, a chef’s kitchen and three terraces totaling 1,252 square feet with panoramic water and city skyline views.

It is also a celebrity-packed home to the mega-wealthy, including singer Frank Ocean.

This story hurt my heart. So many millionaires and billionaires are sad, due to not having a connection to God.

Let’s face it. Business can be stressful. But a companies profits dwindling is no reason to kill yourself.

They paid him $2.9 million and got another $500 Million in funding like it was nothing. Money is simply energy. The owners can always start a new even more profitable business.

With the way the internet is set up and the influence that many people like me have there are alternatives to marketing that many big businesses could look into.

The rise of Amazon put many businesses out of business and even caused entire malls to close. Yet Barnes & Nobles is still thriving.

Success has it’s ups and downs. There are always hills, peaks and valleys.

Don’t let it get to you.

I would suggest that everyone get spiritual mentorship, especially high level CEO, C-Suite professionals and entrepreneurs. Everyone needs someone to talk to and a high vibrational spirit to motivate you.

Money is awesome. But it’s even better with GOD.

Book a CALL to discuss.

UPDATE: 

Gustavo Arnal is accused of role in ‘pump and dump’ scheme that artificially inflated value of flailing company and cost shareholders $1.2 BILLION

Daily Mail Reports:

The Bed Bath & Beyond CFO who plunged to his death on Friday was being sued for artificially inflating the company’s stock price in a ‘pump and dump’ scheme to sell off his shares at a higher price, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Gustavo Arnal, 52, is listed as one of the defendants in a class action lawsuit brought by a group of shareholders who claim they lost around $1.2billion when Arnal and majority shareholder Ryan Cohen engaged in a ‘pump and dump’ scheme.

The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on August 23, claims Cohen had approached Arnal about a plan to control shares of Bed Bath and Beyond so they could both profit.

As part of the plan, the lawsuit claims, Arnal ‘agreed to regulate all insider sales by BBBY’s officers and directors to ensure that the market would not be inundated with a large number of BBBY shares at a given time.’

He then allegedly issued ‘materially misleading statements made to investors regarding BBBY’s strategic company plans, financial condition… and reports of shares holding and selling’ to help increase share prices.

By the time Arnal sold over 42,000 shares in the company two weeks ago it was valued at $1 million, according to MarketBeat.com.

The lawsuit was then filed just one week before Arnal took his own life by jumping from the 18th floor of the famous ‘Jenga’ tower in lower Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood on Friday August 2nd.

THE SCAM

The class action lawsuit was brought by Virginia resident Pengcheng Si on behalf of all those who purchased Bed Bath & Beyond stocks between March 25 and August 18.

They are now seeking damages for the alleged ‘pump and dump’ scheme, claiming Cohen offered to purchase a large stake in the company, including call options on more than 1.6 million shares with prices between $60 to $80.

In exchange, the suit alleges, Arnal would ensure that insiders would not flood the market with the stock.

He did so, allegedly by making ‘materially misleading statements and omissions’ about the company’s financial standing in an effort to artificially inflate the share price,’ the suit says

‘Through mid August 2022, BBBY appeared — from the company’s public statements and financial reporting to be a successful turning-around company,’ it alleges.

But in reality, it says, Arnal ‘blatantly misrepresented the value and profitability of [the company] causing BBBY to report revenues that was fictitious [and] announce publicly that the company is successfully on the way spinning off Buybuy Baby to ‘unlock full value’ of this ‘tremendous asset.’

 Buybuy Baby, though, was not actually doing well financially, the lawsuit claims.

Then on August 16, Cohen filed a document to the Securities and Exchange Commission saying he owned 9,450,100 share, including 1,670,100 shares under certain call options.

It also claimed he held onto his April call options that would only begin to pay out if the stock hit $60 a share before January 20, 2023.

He was soon granted three seats on the board of the company, the lawsuit alleges, but had actually sold most of his shares in the company at that point.

Instead, the lawsuit claims, Cohen ‘submitted [the document] for the purpose of creating [a] buying frenzy of BBBY stocks so that Cohen can finish selling his shares at [an] artificially inflated price.’

Stock prices rose 75 percent that day, the lawsuit alleges. But unbeknownst to share holders, it claims, that same day, Cohen also filed a form signifying his intent to sell the remainder of his shares and call options.

It was not disclosed to the public until the market closed the following day, when shares tumbled from a record high of $30 per share to around $22.50 a share.

Then after Arnal and Cohen filed a form saying they sold all their shares on August 16, the stock down 45 percent to $16.16.

It then continued to plummet to $8.78 on August 23 — down more than 70 percent from its high of $30 a share. By September 4, Bed Bath and Beyond was trading at just $8.63.

Lord! Life isn’t fair.  Starting to believe poverty comes from playing fair.  Cause the rich often do not care.