Keith Gill, nicknamed "Roaring Kitty", a key figure who had vigorously promoted the rise of GameStop's stock in the "meme stock" craze in 2021, suddenly announced on July 1 that he had a 6.6% stake in Chewy, an American online pet product retailer. This unexpected move shocked the executives of the American pet product company and caused Chewy's stock price to fluctuate like a roller coaster that day.
Gill's investment in Chewy is his second public investment after GameStop. The most obvious commonality between the two investments in Chewy and GameStop is billionaire Ryan Cohen. Cohen is the founder of Chewy and is now the CEO of GameStop. Cohen founded Chewy in 2011 and sold it in 2017.
Gill disappeared for more than three years after the "meme stock" craze subsided. He suddenly reappeared on social media networks such as Reddit, X, and YouTube in May of this year. His posts and screenshots have caused GameStop's stock price to fluctuate greatly in the past two months.
Jill's latest news caused Chewy's stock price to rise from around $27 at the close of last Friday (June 28) to $30 on the same day, and then suddenly reversed its upward trend in volatile trading, and finally fell 6.61% to $25.44 at the close of the market. As many as 61.44 million shares were traded in the market, which was several times more than the average trading volume of 12.46 million shares in the past.
According to documents submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gill bought 9 million shares of Chewy at $27.24 per share on June 24. These shares are worth about $245 million. Gill is now the third largest shareholder of Chewy.
Gill has traditionally disclosed his investments and holdings through social media posts, but because his investment in Chewy exceeds 5% of the company's outstanding shares, it must be reported to the SEC.
Three days before Gill bought Chewy shares, he posted a photo of a puppy on the social media platform X. The photo briefly pushed Chewy's stock price to a nearly one-year high, while also driving up the stock prices of other pet product retailers Petco and Wag.
But according to multiple reports, Gill's investment has worried Chewy executives, who are concerned that the majority shareholder, which is an asset management company, will decide to delay investing in Chewy because of the stock volatility caused by Gill. The reports also said that Chewy executives and the board of directors have not yet contacted Gill.
