Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond plunged more than 15% in after-hours trading Wednesday after GameStop Chairman Ryan Cohen revealed plans to sell his meme holdings.
In a regulatory filing Tuesday, Cohen’s venture capital and activist firm RC Ventures said it plans to sell its entire 11.8% stake in Bed, Bath & Beyond within the next 90 days .
An investment firm must give notice of a planned sale when it or its affiliates plan to sell more than 5,000 shares or US$50,000 worth of shares not otherwise registered.
Cohen first revealed in early March that he holds a substantial stake in Bed Bath & Beyond through RC Ventures.
At the time of the initial investment, GameStop chairman and founder of online pet store Chewy wrote a letter to Bed Bath & Beyond management urging the company to change. The activist stance eventually led to three Cohen appointees joining the company’s board, sending Bed Bath & Beyond shares soaring, eventually hitting a high of more than $27 in late March.
Subsequent declines in share price investors began to withdraw from riskier assets. But as stocks rallied last month, Bed Bath & Beyond has rebounded.
Shares of the retailer have surged more than 360% over the past month as the meme stock movement has revived. Bed Bath & Beyond stock has been among the most followed names on Reddit’s Wall Street betting forum for the past few weeks, according to Ape Wisdom.
Bed Bath & Beyond also obtained Monday regulatory filings showing Cohen purchased more than 9.4 million shares of the company through RC Ventures, including more than 1.6 million forward out-of-the-money call options with strike prices at Between $60 and $80.
Investors profit from call options when the price of the underlying asset rises and the strike price (the price at which the trader can exercise the option) is as high as $80, the investor impression is that of a Cohen bet Shares could soar from Monday’s close at just $16 a share.
Those hopes were dashed in new regulatory filings Wednesday.
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