Shares of GameStop Corp. jumped nearly 17% in after-hours trading Thursday, after the company announced that executives are looking to conduct a stock split for the first time in 15 years.
The videogame retailer announced that it planned to ask shareholders for authorization to increase its share count to 1 billion from 300 million so that it can carry out a stock split in the form of a dividend. The company also expects that the move to increase its share count would “provide flexibility for future corporate needs,” a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission stated.
GameStop
GME,
-0.16%
didn’t specify in the filing the ratio by which it intended to split its stock if the measure is approved by shareholders at the next annual meeting. The company split its stock 2-for-1 on March 19, 2007, the only split in its history, according to Dow Jones Market Data Group.
GameStop said that its definitive proxy statement would contain more details about the amendment to increase the share count, as well as information about the timing and location of the annual meeting. A proxy has not yet been publicly filed with the SEC; GameStop’s 2021 proxy was filed publicly on April 22 of that year.
The company further plans to seek shareholder approval for a new incentive plan that it says will “support future compensatory equity issuances.”
If GameStop — which has gained prominence as investors gathering on Reddit targeted the stock in recent years — goes through with the stock split, it would join a wave of high-profile splits. Google parent Alphabet Inc.
GOOG,
-2.10%
GOOGL,
-2.02%,
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
-1.99%,
and Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
-1.50%
all have announced plans to split their stocks in the first quarter of 2022.
Read: The stock split from Google’s parent may spark a wave, Bank of America analysts say
Shares of GameStop have rallied 12% over the past three months as the S&P 500
SPX,
-1.57%
has slipped about 5% in the same span. Shares rose 16.9% in after-hours trading Thursday after closing with a 0.2% decline at $166.58, the third straight decline for the stock after a 10-session winning streak that was its longest in 12 years.