ZINGER KEY POINTS
- “I wasn’t that aware it was a meme stock,” Jake Freeman told Benzinga.
- Investor focus now, however, is on MindMed, which was co-Founded by Jake's uncle.
Jake Freeman, the 20-year-old college student who reportedly banked $100 million trading Bed Bath and Beyond stock, purchased 4.69 million shares of the retailer Bed Bath & Beyond Inc in July at roughly $5.20 per share along with his uncle, Dr. Scott Freeman.
That netted their Freeman Capital Management family fund a 6.21% passive stake in the meme stock.
“I wasn’t that aware it was a meme stock,” the University of Southern California student told Benzinga on Thursday.
“I approached it more from a mathematical side — looking at the balance sheet and the intersection of the debt side, the equity. I did not expect in any way the stock going up so fast.”
The Bed Bath & Beyond Investor's Plan: In a July 21 letter to Bed Bath & Beyond, the younger Freeman outlined Freeman Capital’s plan for the realignment of the retailer, which consisted of two crucial legs: cutting debt and raising capital.
Fast forward just four weeks later, coupled with a carefully orchestrated short squeeze by Reddit's WallStreetBets community known as the "Apes," shares of Bed Bath rocketed to $28.60 at the highs on Tuesday — the same day Freeman Capital exited its entire stake in the company.
Curiously, on the same day, GameStop Corp. Chairman Ryan Cohen, who sparked the Bed Bath & Beyond fanfare with the Apes, filed with the SEC saying he intended to sell as many as 9.45 million shares of the company beginning that day.
The Freeman Family Fund's sale was well-timed. It closed at more than $130 million after spending $25 million in the initial investment, netting around $105-$110 million, or between 420%-460%.
MindMed Shares Skyrocket: Jake, who previously interned at Volaris Capital Management invests with his uncle Scott, who is the co-founder and former chief medical officer of Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc. MindMed shares rocketed 77.4% from the previous day's highs on Thursday after the Bed Bath & Beyond sale was disclosed.
The investor focus is now on MindMed, which was originally a privately owned company, Savant, co-founded Scott.
The Freemans have built a 5.6% stake in the company and sent a strategic value enhancement plan to MindMed, outlining the fund's interest in working "hand-in-hand" to cut the development time of MindMed's two original drugs and slash its annual cash-burn rate.
Analyzing the letter, which the younger Freeman confirmed to Benzinga, FCM is focusing on MindMed's core drugs, cutting cash burn and terminating MindMed's at-the-money equity offering.
“I’ve been in drug development since I was in high school,” Scott said in an Aug. 16 interview on the YouTube channel Psychedelic Invest.
“About 13 years ago I partnered with Stephen Hurst and we founded a company called Savant.It was a private company working on drugs to treat addiction.”
After MindMed bought Savant, where he was previously CMO, Scott became the company's first CMO. He left the organization around a year after he arrived, making him the first senior member of the team to do so.
Benzinga asked the younger Freeman why Scott left the company; he said he could not divulge the reason for Freeman’s departure due to a non-disclosure agreement.
“As a co-founder,” Scott said in the aforementioned interview. “I’ve been sitting on the sidelines watching, and one of the reasons why I want to go back is that I think there are things that I think need to be done differently.”
In the letter to MindMed, the pair call for an overhaul of the company, including cutting 11 of its 22 employees; the elimination of more than $21.8 million in non-core expenditures; and half of its cash burn rate over time.
It also calls for the immediate development of a proposal to approach the FDA to upgrade its MM-120 drug from a Phase 2 trial to a Phase 3 trial, which the Freemans said could bring the drug to market in four years rather than the expected seven to eight years.
The enhancement plan calls for a 50% reduction in executive compensation as well.
BBBY, MNMD Price Action: Bed Bath & Beyond shares closed lower 19.63% at $18.55 on Thursday. MindMed shares closed 36.18% higher at $1.02.
Also Read: A College Student Cashed Out a $110 Million Profit on Bed Bath & Beyond - After Piling $25 Million Into the Meme Stock Source: Insider
- A college student made a $110 million profit on Bed Bath & Beyond stock this week.
- Jake Freeman's fund revealed a 6.2% stake in the retailer in late July, then sold it on Tuesday.
- Bed Bath & Beyond, the latest meme stock to skyrocket, has more than tripled in value this month.
A 20-year-old college student raked in an estimated $110 million profit by selling Bed Bath & Beyond shares this week, capitalizing on the homewares retailer becoming the latest meme stock to multiply in value in a matter of days.
Jake Freeman, the head of Freeman Capital Management, revealed he owned nearly 5 million Bed Bath & Beyond shares, or 6.2% of the company, in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on July 21. He sold the entire position on Tuesday, he disclosed in another filing this week.
Bed Bath & Beyond stock more than tripled in price from under $6 to over $20 during that period, as retail traders piled in hoping it would skyrocket in value like GameStop, AMC, and other meme stocks. Freeman spent about $25 million on his stake, or less than $5.50 a share, and sold it for north of $130 million on Tuesday, the Financial Times reported.
"I certainly did not expect such a vicious rally upwards," Freeman told the newspaper. "I thought this was going to be a six-months-plus play," he continued, adding that he was "really shocked that it went up so fast."
Freeman is an applied math and economics major at the University of Southern California, and co-published a paper titled "Irreducible Risks of Hedging a Bond with a Default Swap" at the age of 16. He told the FT that he has invested alongside his uncle for years, previously interned at a hedge fund named Volaris Capital, and mostly raised the money for his Bed Bath & Beyond bet from friends and family.
He appears to have lucked out with the timing of his sale. Bed Bath & Beyond stock fell as much as 19% on Wednesday after the retailer's largest shareholder and GameStop's chairman, Ryan Cohen, disclosed he intended to dump his entire 12% position in the company.
Bed Bath & Beyond shares had spiked on Tuesday after Cohen confirmed he still held bullish call options on the stock. Cohen helped spark GameStop's surge in January 2021, and kickstarted the wider meme-stock boom, by investing in the video-game retailer and pushing for changes at the company.
Freeman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
Also Read: Cohen Makes Millions on Bed Bath & Beyond as Meme Traders Recoil