On Tuesday, eBay announced that it had rejected an unsolicited buyout offer from electronics retailer GameStop, describing it as “neither credible nor attractive”.

In a letter to GameStop’s chief executive, Ryan Cohen, eBay’s board said it had decided to reject the bid after a thorough review, taking into account eBay’s standalone prospects, unclear ability for GameStop to finance an acquisition and questions over the operation and management viability of a combined company.

The rejection marks the latest development in a story that began with little warning at the beginning of the month when GameStop unexpectedly announced a bid for the company on its website. The electronics retailer offered to buy the company at $125 a share, a 45 per cent premium on its February 4 closing price, despite uncertainty around where it would get the cash to do so.

GameStop was only valued at around $12 billion prior to its bid, a quarter of eBay’s $46 billion valuation and significantly below its $55 billion bid. US-based TD Bank offered to provide $20 billion of financing towards the deal if it was accepted, and GameStop has reserves of $9 billion, but the remainder of the bid was unaccounted for. When pressed on the topic in an interview with CNBC, Cohen repeatedly stated that the deal offered was “half cash, half stock”, without elaborating.

Cohen has made a career out of unlikely bets, most notably GameStop itself, which he brought from a $381 million net loss when taking over in 2021 to net income of $418 million by 2025. The takeover was fuelled by retail traders who were enticed by his backing of the failing retailer, spiking its share price as it became a so-called “meme stock”.

Cohen told CNBC in his interview that GameStop made the unsolicited, non-binding bid for eBay publicly rather than talking to eBay’s board directly to avoid the “perverse financial incentives from the board to the management teams”. In practice, this means Cohen may be willing to launch a hostile takeover bid to retail shareholders despite the board’s rejection.

Talking to the Financial Times last week, Cohen said “The more [eBay] fights me, the more […] I’m not going to take no for an answer. I’m not going away. I’m a pain in the ass.”

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