Gustavo Arnal (52), the financial chief of meme stock company ‘Bed Bath & Beyond’, has died after falling from a window of a New York skyscraper. The CEO was indicted on August 23 by a group of disgruntled shareholders who accused him of fraud with shares of ‘Bed Bath & Beyond’.
On Friday afternoon, emergency services in New York City found a man after falling from a skyscraper known as the ‘Jenga Tower’, because of its resemblance to the Jenga game, which involves moving wooden blocks to build the tallest tower possible.
Police did not release any details about the accident. The victim turned out to be 52-year-old Gustavo Arnal, the financial chief of ‘Bed Bath & Beyond’.
Pump and dump
The victim was sued on Aug. 23 by a group of angry shareholders of the company, which is one of the so-called “meme stocks” popular with Reddit investors. Arnal sold his company’s shares on August 17 for $1.4 million. Since then, the share price has fallen by more than 60 percent. According to the angry shareholders, Arnal was guilty of ‘pump-and-dump’, in which he purposely pushed the share price up by spreading misleading information.
Bed Bath & Beyond, a retailer of household goods, said at the end of August that it would close a number of branches and lay off employees. The company also wanted to issue an undisclosed number of new shares to raise funds. Investors were not pleased with this, causing the price to plummet.
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