Bed Bath & Beyond CFO dies after falling from New York’s Jenga tower

Sept 4 (Reuters) – Mattress Tub & Past Inc’s (BBBY.O) chief monetary officer fell to his demise from New York’s Tribeca skyscraper generally known as the “Jenga” tower on Friday afternoon, police mentioned on Sunday, days after the struggling retailer introduced it was closing shops and shedding staff.

Gustavo Arnal, 52, joined Mattress Tub & Past (BBBY.O) in 2020. He beforehand labored as CFO for cosmetics model Avon in London and had a 20-year stint with Procter & Gamble (PG.N), in keeping with his LinkedIn profile.

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.

The police assertion didn’t present additional particulars on the circumstances resulting in Arnal’s demise and mentioned the New York Metropolis Medical Examiner’s Workplace would decide the reason for demise. Mattress Tub & Past confirmed his demise 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 house 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 mentioned it could shut 150 shops, reduce 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 mentioned it could retain its buybuy Child enterprise, which it had put up on the market. learn extra

Arnal offered 55,013 shares in Mattress Tub & Past in a number of transactions on Aug. 16-17, Reuters’ calculations confirmed based mostly on SEC filings. The gross sales amounted to about $1.4 million, and Arnal nonetheless had nearly 255,400 shares remaining.

On Aug. 23, the corporate, Arnal and main shareholder Ryan Cohen have been sued over accusations of artificially inflating the agency’s inventory value in a “pump and dump” scheme, with the lawsuit alleging Arnal offered off his shares at the next value after the scheme.

The category motion lawsuit listed Arnal as one of many defendants and was introduced by a bunch 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 manage all insider gross sales by BBBY’s officers and administrators to make sure that the market wouldn’t be inundated with numerous BBBY shares at a given time.”

The lawsuit additionally alleged that he issued materially deceptive statements to buyers.

The corporate mentioned it was “within the early phases of evaluating the grievance, however based mostly on present information the corporate believes the claims are with out benefit.”

Shares in Mattress Tub & Past have been extremely risky in latest 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 almost 10% in early March. Cohen’s RC Ventures disclosed plans to promote its stake on Aug. 17. learn extra

Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; further reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Modifying by Lisa Shumaker and Deepa Babington

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