By Kanishka Singh and Akriti Sharma
(Reuters) -Mattress Bathtub & Past Inc’s chief monetary officer fell to his dying from New York’s Tribeca skyscraper referred to 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 Bathtub & Past (NASDAQ:) in 2020. He beforehand labored as CFO for cosmetics model Avon in London and had a 20-year stint with Procter & Gamble (NYSE:), 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 lifeless 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 dying and mentioned the New York Metropolis Medical Examiner’s Workplace would decide the reason for dying. Mattress Bathtub & Past confirmed his dying in a press assertion on Sunday however gave no particulars.
The massive-box chain – as soon as thought of a so-called “class killer” in house and bathtub items – has seen its fortunes falter after an try and promote extra of its personal model, or private-label items.
Final week, Mattress Bathtub & Past mentioned it might 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 mentioned it might retain its buybuy Child enterprise, which it had put up on the market.
Arnal offered 55,013 shares in Mattress Bathtub & 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 worth in a “pump and dump” scheme, with the lawsuit alleging Arnal offered off his shares at the next worth 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 Court docket 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 a lot of 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 levels of evaluating the grievance, however primarily based on present information the corporate believes the claims are with out benefit.”
Shares in Mattress Bathtub & Past have been extremely risky in current months, being considered 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.
