© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Signage is seen at a Bed Bath & Beyond store in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., June 29, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
By Siddharth Cavale
(Reuters) -Bed Bath & Beyond Inc named accounting head Laura Crossen as interim chief financial officer following the death of finance chief Gustavo Arnal, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
Arnal fell from a New York skyscraper on Friday in what authorities later ruled a suicide.
Crossen, a two-decade company veteran, steps in to the interim CFO position a few months after she was named chief accounting officer at the home-goods retailer.
She will keep her role as accounting chief and will receive a $200,000 bump in base salary, Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ:) said.
Once known for providing shoppers with 20%-off coupons, Bed Bath & Beyond’s fortunes have declined in recent years after its moves to revamp shelves with more private-label products flopped with consumers.
The chain is ditching that strategy to focus more on national brands, and last week said it would close 150 stores and cut jobs in an attempt to turn around its money-losing business.
The company and Arnal were sued on Aug. 23 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.
GameStop Corp (NYSE:) Chairman Ryan Cohen, who was Bed Bath & Beyond’s biggest investor until August when he sold his entire stake of 9.8%, was also named in the lawsuit.
A representative for Cohen’s firm, RC Ventures, was not immediately available for comment.
Pengcheng Si, the lead plaintiff in the August lawsuit, declined to comment on the litigation.
The retailer said last week it was “in the early stages of evaluating the complaint, but based on current knowledge the company believes the claims are without merit.”
“This (lawsuit) is just the opening salvo,” Jacob Zamansky, securities arbitration lawyer at Zamansky LLC, told Reuters. He is not connected to the case.
“Whenever there is a large drop like this it is highly likely a big pension fund will come and file a similar lawsuit … and take over the case,” he added, referring to the share price.
Nuveen LLC, the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System are some of the top pension funds holding stakes in Bed, Bath & Beyond.
Shares of the company, a favorite among so-called meme stocks, were down 18% at $7.08 on Tuesday afternoon.
Its bonds were also quoted slightly lower early on Tuesday.
The 3.749% August 2024s were quoted at 38-43 cents to the dollar compared with around 40-42 on Friday while the 4.915% August 2034s were at 20-24 cents to the dollar versus 22.5-25.5 on Friday, according to an investor who declined to be named.
