Chewy founder Ryan Cohen has reaped a 1,700% return from a $76 million GameStop investment he made last year

Summary List Placement Chewy.com co-founder Ryan Cohen acquired a 12.9% stake in GameStop last year for $76 million. At Monday s high of $159.18, Cohen s stake in the video game retailer had swelled to $1.4 billion, good for a roughly 1,700% return. Cohen recently gained three board seats and is pushing the company to transform into a specialized e-commerce retailer. Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell. Activist investor Ryan Cohen s investment into GameStop last year proved to be good timing on Monday after shares exploded higher by as much as 145%. An epic short squeeze rally, combined with pockets of investor euphoria found on popular trading forums like Reddit s WallStreetBets, helped propel shares of GameStop to an all-time high of $159.18 in Tuesday trades. Cohen amassed a 9 million-share stake in GameStop last year at an average price of $8.43, worth $76 million at the time. At it s intra-day high today, that stake was worth as much as $1.4 billion, representing a return of more than 1,700%. But Cohen seems to be playing the long-game on GameStop. Through his firm RC Ventures, Cohen had petitioned the board of GameStop to adopt a strategy that would transform the company into a specialized e-commerce retailer of gaming products. Cohen utilized a similar strategy for his previous company, Chewy.com, which is a specialized e-commerce retailer of pet products. After being acquired by PetSmart for $3.5 billion, Chewy went public and is now trading at a valuation of more than $43 billion. GameStop seems to have been receptive to Cohen s proposal, granting him three seats on the board of directors, including one for himself. Since Cohen s first purchase of shares of GameStop on September 14, shares are up as much as 2,317%. Read more: BANK OF AMERICA: Buy these 31 unheralded stocks as the recovery s hottest trades of recent months continue to gain strength in 2021 Join the conversation about this story NOW WATCH: How waste is dealt with on the world s largest cruise ship

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