Reuters
By Kanishka Singh and Akriti Sharma
On Friday at 12:30 p.m. ET (1630 GMT), police responded to a 911 call and found a 52-year-old man dead near the building who suffered injuries from a fall. Police identified the man as Gustavo Arnal.
The big-box chain – once considered a so-called “category killer” in home and bath goods – has seen its fortunes falter after an attempt to sell more of its own brand, or private-label goods.
It forecast a bigger-than-expected 26% slump in same-store sales for the second quarter and said it would retain its buybuy Baby business, which it had put up for sale.
On Aug. 23, the company, Arnal and major shareholder Ryan Cohen were sued over accusations of artificially inflating the firm's stock price in a “pump and dump” scheme, with the lawsuit alleging Arnal sold off his shares at a higher price after the scheme.
The class action lawsuit listed Arnal as one of the defendants and was brought by a group of shareholders who claimed they lost around $1.2 billion.
The filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleged that 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.”
The lawsuit also alleged that he issued materially misleading statements to investors.
The company said it was “in the early stages of evaluating the complaint, but based on current knowledge the company believes the claims are without merit.”
Cohen, a billionaire investor, disclosed a stake of nearly 10% in early March. Cohen's RC Ventures disclosed plans to sell its stake on Aug. 17.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Deepa Babington)
