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Mattress Tub & Past Inc’s chief monetary officer fell to his dying from New York’s Tribeca skyscraper generally known as the “Jenga” tower on Friday afternoon, police stated on Sunday, days after the struggling retailer introduced it was closing shops and shedding staff.
Gustavo Arnal, 52, joined Mattress Tub & Past in 2020. He beforehand labored as CFO for cosmetics model Avon in London and had a 20-year stint with Procter & Gamble, in line with his LinkedIn profile.
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On Friday at 12:30 p.m. ET (1630 GMT), police responded to a 911 name and located a 52-year-old man useless close to the constructing who suffered accidents from a fall. Police recognized the person as Gustavo Arnal.
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The police assertion didn’t present additional particulars on the circumstances resulting in Arnal’s dying and stated the New York Metropolis Medical Examiner’s Workplace would decide the reason for dying. Mattress Tub & Past confirmed his dying in a press assertion on Sunday however gave no particulars.
The massive-box chain – as soon as thought-about a so-called “class killer” in residence and bathtub items – has seen its fortunes falter after an try to promote extra of its personal model, or private-label items.
Final week, Mattress Tub & Past stated it will shut 150 shops, minimize jobs and overhaul its merchandising technique in an try to show round its money-losing enterprise.
It forecast a bigger-than-expected 26% hunch in same-store gross sales for the second quarter and stated it will retain its buybuy Child enterprise, which it had put up on the market.
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Arnal bought 55,013 shares in Mattress Tub & Past in a number of transactions on Aug. 16-17, Reuters’ calculations confirmed primarily based on SEC filings. The gross sales amounted to about $1.4 million, and Arnal nonetheless had virtually 255,400 shares remaining.
On Aug. 23, the corporate, Arnal and main shareholder Ryan Cohen had been sued over accusations of artificially inflating the agency’s inventory value in a “pump and dump” scheme, with the lawsuit alleging Arnal bought off his shares at a better value after the scheme.
The category motion lawsuit listed Arnal as one of many defendants and was introduced by a gaggle of shareholders who claimed they misplaced round $1.2 billion.
The submitting within the U.S. District Courtroom for the District of Columbia alleged that Arnal “agreed to control all insider gross sales by BBBY’s officers and administrators to make sure that the market wouldn’t be inundated with a lot of BBBY shares at a given time.”
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The lawsuit additionally alleged that he issued materially deceptive statements to traders.
The corporate stated it was “within the early phases of evaluating the grievance, however primarily based on present information the corporate believes the claims are with out advantage.”
Shares in Mattress Tub & Past have been extremely risky in current months, being seen as a so-called “meme” inventory, which commerce extra on social media sentiment than financial fundamentals.
Cohen, a billionaire investor, disclosed a stake of practically 10% in early March. Cohen’s RC Ventures disclosed plans to promote its stake on Aug. 17.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; extra reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Modifying by Lisa Shumaker and Deepa Babington)