Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, hosting a YouTube livestream on June 7th, 2024.
Source: Roaring Kitty | YouTube
Shares of Chewy popped in the premarket trading Monday after a Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed meme stock trader “Roaring Kitty” took a stake in the pet food e-commerce retailer.
The filing showed Roaring Kitty, whose legal name is Keith Gill, bought just over 9 million shares â amounting to a 6.6% stake in the company. That makes him the third-biggest Chewy shareholder, according to FactSet. Based on Friday’s close, that stake is valued at more than $245 million.
CHWY rallies
The stock was up more than 20% before the bell.
The SEC filing also included a section that read: “Check the appropriate box to designate whether you are a cat.” There was an “x” next to a response that read: “I am not a cat.”
Chewy shares took a wild ride last week after Gill posted a picture on social media platform X of a cartoon dog. Shares were up as much as 34% on Thursday but ended the day down slightly.
CNBC emailed Chewy PR seeking comment on the new shareholder.
Gill, who is a champion of GameStop and has been stirring up trading in the video game company in the last few months, disclosed a stake of 9.001 million GameStop shares in mid June after exiting his massive call options position.
There’s a big connection between GameStop and Chewy. GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen was the founder and CEO of Chewy, who was instrumental in PetSmart’s takeover of Chewy in 2017 and its subsequent initial public offering in 2019.
Cohen joined the GameStop board of directors along with two other Chewy executives in January 2021, partly helping fuel the initial GameStop rally. He later took over as GameStop CEO in 2023, leading a turnaround in the brick-and-mortar video game retailer.
In a recent YouTube livestream, Gill said GameStop is in the second stage of a reinvention, and it has become a bet on Cohen himself.
