Business
GameStop’s Ryan Cohen eyes ‘very big’ consumer megadeal that could increase company’s value tenfold
GameStop wants to acquire a publicly traded consumer company that’s far larger than the video game retailer in a deal that could be “transformational” for the company, CEO Ryan Cohen told CNBC in an interview Friday.
“It’s gonna be really big. Really big. Very, very, very big,” Cohen said of the size of the acquisition. “It’s transformational. Not just for GameStop, but ultimately, within the capital markets … this is something that really has never been done before within the history of the capital markets.”
Cohen declined to name the company’s targets – saying only he’s seeking a publicly traded consumer company that’s undervalued, “high quality, durable, scalable with growth prospects” and has a “sleepy management team” behind the wheel. He claimed if the investment pans out, it has the “potential to make [GameStop] worth several hundreds of billions of dollars.”
“If it works, it’s genius. If it doesn’t work, then, you know, it will be totally, totally foolish,” Cohen, the co-founder and former CEO of Chewy, acknowledged. “But I believe we have the components to make it work, and I’m very confident in the ability to make the asset much, much, much more efficient … we’ve got the governance structure, we’ve got the capital, we have the operational expertise.”
While Cohen has transformed GameStop from a dying legacy retailer into a money making business, it’s unclear how an acquisition in the consumer space could increase its worth to over $100 billion – a herculean task for a business with a $10.5 billion market cap.
One investment banker in the consumer and retail space was skeptical Cohen could pull it off, saying there are very few businesses in the sector that could increase GameStop’s value so dramatically.
“I’ve never seen it,” the person said. “Unless you’re talking about radically transforming a business model or something, it just doesn’t happen in retail.”
Another agreed.
“It’s easy to say something,” the person said. “It’s a lot harder to do it.”
GameStop’s ambitions to balloon in size first came to light in early January. The company unveiled a new, all-or-nothing equity incentive for Cohen that will only pay out if it reaches a market cap of $100 billion and sees $10 billion in cumulative earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
If GameStop’s acquisition plans succeed and its market value hits $100 billion or more, Cohen gets his payday — but he said he hopes “all shareholders do” as well.
Since taking over as GameStop’s CEO in September 2023, Cohen has dramatically cut costs, improved the retailer’s profitability and grown its collectibles business, even as overall sales have sagged.
Between GameStop’s fiscal 2023 third quarter, when Cohen took over, and its fiscal 2025 third quarter, its most recent quarter, GameStop’s gross margin has grown by 7 percentage points and net income has climbed to $77.1 million, up from a loss of $3.1 million. In fiscal 2024 and 2025, the retailer posted consecutive annual net incomes following five straight years of losses.
The company’s success has attracted interest from Michael Burry — the investor who became famous after betting against the U.S. housing market ahead of the financial crisis — who recently disclosed that he’s been buying shares.
“Ryan is making lemonade out of lemons,” Burry said in a Monday Substack post. “He has a crappy business, and he is milking it best he can while taking advantage of the meme stock phenomenon to raise cash and wait for an opportunity to make a big buy of a real growing cash cow business.”
Over the last two years, GameStop has also amassed a more than $9 billion cash pile between cash on hand and marketable securities – money the company had been using to invest in bitcoin.
When asked if GameStop will liquidate its bitcoin holdings to help fund its acquisition plans, Cohen said he was “not prepared to say,” but called his new strategy “way more compelling than bitcoin.”
“It’s similar to Berkshire Hathaway, except what Berkshire did in decades we’re attempting to do in a much shorter time in terms of creating that much value,” said Cohen. “We can go in there and apply the Chewy and [GameStop] mindset of like brutal efficiency and increase the profitability of the company very, very quickly and so we could capture a lot more value by focusing on this under optimized asset, and then eventually we could move on to the next one, but, you know, we’ll see what happens.”
India’s budget focuses on infrastructure and defence spending and tax breaks for data-centre investments.
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Business
New Income Tax Act 2025 to come into effect from April 1, key reliefs announced in Budget 2026
New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said that the Income Tax Act 2025 will come into effect from April 1, 2026, and the I-T forms have been redesigned such that ordinary citizens can comply without difficulty for ease of living.
The new measures include exemption on insurance interest awards, nil deduction certificates for small taxpayers, and extension of the ITR filing deadline for non-audit cases to August 31.
Individuals with ITR 1 and ITR 2 will continue to file I-T returns till July 31.
“In July 2024, I announced a comprehensive review of the Income Tax Act 1961. This was completed in record time, and the Income Tax Act 2025 will come into effect from April 1, 2026. The forms have been redesigned such that ordinary citizens can comply without difficulty, for) ease of living,” she said while presenting the Budget 2026-27
In a move that directly eases cash-flow pressure on individuals making overseas payments, the Union Budget announced lower tax collection at source across key categories.
“I propose to reduce the TCS rate on the sale of overseas tour programme packages from the current 5 per cent and 20 per cent to 2 per cent without any stipulation of amount. I propose to reduce the TCS rate for pursuing education and for medical purposes from 5 per cent to 2 per cent,” said Sitharaman.
She clarified withholding on services, adding that “supply of manpower services is proposed to be specifically brought within the ambit of payment contractors for the purpose of TDS to avoid ambiguity”.
“Thus, TDS on these services will be at the rate of either 1 per cent or 2 per cent only,” she mentioned during her Budget speech.
The Budget also proposes a tax holiday for foreign cloud companies using data centres in India till 2047.
Business
Budget 2026 Live Updates: TCS On Overseas Tour Packages Slashed To 2%; TDS On Education LRS Eased
Union Budget 2026 Live Updates: Union Budget 2026 Live Updates: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is presenting the Union Budget 2026-27 in Parliament, her record ninth budget speech. During her Budget Speech, the FM will detail budgetary allocations and revenue projections for the upcoming financial year 2026-27. Sitharaman is notably dressed in a Kanjeevaram Silk saree, a nod to the traditional weaving sector in poll-bound Tamil Nadu.
The budget comes at a time when there is geopolitical turmoil, economic volatility and trade war. Different sectors are looking to get some support with new measures and relaxations ahead of the budget, especially export-oriented industries, which have borne the brunt of the higher US tariffs being imposed last year by the Trump administration.
On January 29, 2026, Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey 2025-26, a comprehensive snapshot of the country’s macro-economic situation, in Parliament, setting the stage for the budget and showing the government’s roadmap. The survey projected that India’s economy is expected to grow 6.8%-7.2% in FY27, underscoring resilience even as global economic uncertainty persists.
Budget 2026 Expectations
Expectations across key sectors are taking shape as stakeholders look to the Budget for support that sustains growth, strengthens jobs and eases financial pressures:
Taxpayers & Households: Many taxpayers want practical improvements to the income tax structure that preserve simplicity while supporting long-term financial planning — including broader deductions for home loan interest and diversified retirement savings options.
New Tax Regime vs Old Tax Regime | New Income Tax Rules | Income Tax 2026
Businesses & Industry: With industrial output and investment showing resilience, firms are looking for policies that bolster capital formation, ease compliance, and expand infrastructure spending — especially in manufacturing and technology-driven sectors that promise jobs and exports.
Startups & Innovation: The startup ecosystem expects incentives around employee stock options and capital access, along with regulatory tweaks that encourage risk capital and talent retention without increasing compliance burdens.
Also See: Stock Market Updates Today
The Budget speech will be broadcast live here and on all other news channels. You can also catch all the updates about Budget 2026 on News18.com. News18 will provide detailed live blog updates on the Budget speech, and political, industry, and market reactions.
We are providing a full, detailed coverage of the union budget 2026 here, with a lot of insights, experts’ views and analyses. Stay tuned with us to get latest updates.
Also Read: Budget 2026 Live Streaming
Here are the Live Updates of Union Budget 2026:
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