The chief financial officer of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc fell to his death from the Tribeca skyscraper in New York, known as the “Jenga” tower, on Friday afternoon, police said, just days after a lawsuit alleged he was involved in a “pump and dump” scheme. “.
Gustavo Arnal, 52, joined Bed Bath & Beyond in 2020. He previously worked as CFO for cosmetics brand Avon in London and had a 20-year stint at Procter & Gamble, according to his LinkedIn profile.
At 12:30 a.m. ET Friday, police responded to a 911 call and found a 52-year-old man dead near the building who appeared to have suffered injuries from a fall. Police identified the man as Gustavo Arnal.
The police statement did not provide further details about the circumstances leading to Arnal’s death and said the New York Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the cause of death. Bed Bath and Beyond confirmed his death in a press statement Sunday, but did not provide details.
Arnal sold 55,013 shares of Bed Bath & Beyond in multiple transactions on Aug. 16-17, Reuters calculations based on SEC filings show. The sales totaled about $1.4 million, and Arnal still has almost 255,400 shares outstanding.
On August 23, the company, Arnal and major shareholder Ryan Cohen were sued on charges of artificially inflating the firm’s stock price in a “pump and dump” scheme, with the suit alleging that Arnal sold his stock at a higher price after the scheme.
The class-action lawsuit names Arnal as one of the defendants and was filed by a group of shareholders who say they lost about $1.2 billion.
The filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia District alleges that Arnal “agreed to regulate all insider sales by BBBY officers and directors to ensure that the market would not be flooded with a large number of BBBY shares at any one time.”
The lawsuit also alleges that he also made materially misleading statements to investors.
The company did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
The CFO’s death was first reported by the New York Post, while the case was first reported by the Daily Mail.
The big retailer — once considered a so-called “category killer” in home and bath products — has seen its fortunes falter after trying to sell more of its own brand or private label goods.
Last week, Bed Bath & Beyond said it would close 150 stores, cut jobs and overhaul its merchandising strategy in an effort to turn around its losing business.
Bed Bath & Beyond forecast a bigger-than-expected 26% drop in same-store sales for the second quarter and said it would keep its buybuy Baby business, which it had put up for sale.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shoemaker and Deepa Babington)
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