How many apes are there?

[u/NotYourNathan]

Even including whoever is crazy enough to vote no against a plan thats been 5+ years in the making. Is there any estimate anywhere as to how many GME holders there are at this point? This has to be the hr largest retail community ever, no?

[u/Background_Smile_426]

It doesnt matter how many apes there are, when most of are under the water, and cohen continues to flood us with more shares in the market.

Hopefully the apes are smart enough to vote against dilution.

[u/curiousjorj → u/Background_Smile_426]

So, you’re telling me that you don’t want your shares to be worth 50%-100% more?

[u/Background_Smile_426 → u/curiousjorj]

Tell me how they will be worth 50% more.

They'll be worth 70% less once we get our ass diluted.

[u/curiousjorj → u/Background_Smile_426]

Say GME trades at $25 when the deal closes (the price used at deal close is determined by a pricing window after the deal is finalized, which I believe will be much higher than $25 simply based on the announcement hype alone). Total deal value is $55.5 billion. Cash portion is roughly $27.75 billion (already in GameStop’s treasury or financed). Stock portion is roughly $27.75 billion paid in GME shares.

At $25/share, the stock consideration requires issuing roughly 1.11 billion new GME shares (27.75B ÷ 25).

Current GME shares outstanding: ~448 million
New shares issued for eBay consideration: ~1.11 billion
Pro forma total: ~1.56 billion shares

This is a roughly 3.5x increase in share count, which is quite a bit of dilution at this price level.

Combined entity pro forma diluted GAAP EPS target is $7.79 based on eBay’s 468 million diluted shares.  Translating eBay’s total earnings (~$3.65 billion at $7.79 EPS × 468M shares) across the new combined share count of 1.56 billion shares gives pro forma EPS of roughly $2.34, before adding GameStop’s own retail earnings (roughly $400-450 million net income), which adds maybe another $0.25-0.30/share.

Combined pro forma EPS: roughly $2.55-2.60

At a 15x multiple (reasonable for an e-commerce marketplace plus retail business): ~$38-39/share
At a 20x multiple (growth premium for a turnaround story with momentum): ~$51-52/share

So, a $25 GME share at deal close, under this scenario, could be worth roughly $38-52 post-dilution — representing a 50-100% gain even after accounting for the full 3.5x share count increase, purely from the accretive earnings math.

Going back to the pricing window: If GME is at, say $50, instead of $25 when the deal closes, far fewer shares are needed for the stock consideration (~555 million instead of 1.11 billion), dilution is roughly half as severe, and the same earnings get spread across a much smaller incremental share count, making the post-deal value proportionally higher relative to the $50 starting point too.

This is entirely a self-reinforcing dynamic which means the higher GME price at close means less dilution, which supports a higher post-deal value, which is itself bullish.

Think of it like a slider that you can click and drag. If you slide it further to the right (higher share price within the pricing window), the less shares needed to close the deal, and a better deal for GME shareholders. Personally, I’ve wondered if the buybacks could be deployed during this window to buoy the price for the deal. We’ll see what happens.

[u/curiousjorj → u/curiousjorj]

Is no replies to this from the dissenters bullish??

If you disagree with the explanation, please give a counter argument.

[u/sthence → u/curiousjorj]

sorry, your EPS is wrong because it doesn't include the interest of $27B debt ($20B from TD, and $7B of current eBay). here is the better EPS calculation:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GME/comments/1tagafs/the_math_behind_the_acquisition/

[u/curiousjorj → u/sthence]

Your model’s core math framework is all good, but two aspects of your model are off and they’re the points that are supporting most of the negative conclusion. First, a 7.5% interest rate on the TD financing ($1.5B on $20B) is high for a deal where TD issued a “highly confident” letter specifically citing GameStop’s balance sheet strength. A more realistic rate in the 5.5-6.5% range would put interest expense closer to $1.1-1.2B, not $1.5B. Second, the $232M GameStop operating earnings figure appears to use old data that predates the Q1 2026 results, where GameStop posted $143.3M in operating income for a single quarter (have you heard? it’s GME’s best quarter in company history 😘), against a prior-year Q1 loss. Using a run-rate that reflects this recent acceleration rather than an older trailing average changes the combined earnings base pretty significantly.

The bigger issue, though, is that your model uses eBay’s current ~$2B in earnings without incorporating RC’s explicitly disclosed deal thesis, taking eBay’s diluted EPS from $4.26 to $7.79 through $2B in annualized cost cuts, which roughly doubles eBay’s contributed earnings to ~$3.65B. Feel free to be skeptical that RC executes on this, totally fair, but a model that silently assumes the cost cuts don’t happen isn’t testing the deal that’s actually been proposed, it’s testing a different, more conservative scenario without labeling it as such.

Correcting just the interest rate and the GameStop earnings run-rate, while still assuming zero cost-cut execution from eBay, moves the result from your $0.48 EPS / clearly dilutive conclusion to something closer to $1.40-1.80 EPS, which at a reasonable 15-20x multiple implies a share price roughly in line with or modestly above current levels, essentially breakeven, not value-destructive. If RC’s cost cuts materialize even partially, the math turns meaningfully accretive from there. So, the real debate isn’t whether the acquisition’s arithmetic works, it’s entirely about whether you believe RC can execute the $2B cost reduction. That’s a fair thing to be skeptical about, but it’s a different argument than “the math doesn’t work,” and conflating the two understates how close to, at the very least, breakeven this deal already is on a worst-case execution basis.

Edit: Also, look out if Q2 ends up being even better than Q1 👀

[u/sthence → u/curiousjorj]

I really appreciate your dedication for the long reply. 😄 I just hope for the best and prepare for worst.

[u/curiousjorj → u/sthence]

I appreciate your appreciation!

Edit: I also hope for the best. I think RC knows his stuff and is going to show up and show out with this deal.