Bed Bath & Beyond Adds New Directors in Deal With Activist Ryan Cohen

As part of the agreement, three RC Ventures’ director designees—

Marjorie Bowen,

Shelly Lombard,

and

Ben Rosenzweig

—would immediately join Bed Bath & Beyond’s board of directors, the company said. They would also stand for election at the company’s annual meeting, after which the board would revert to its current size of 11 members in total, Bed Bath & Beyond said.

Bed Bath & Beyond has hundreds of physical stores around the country and owns the Harmon retail chain in addition to buybuy Baby. While its shares initially received a boost from the pandemic, they have fallen 23% over the past year.

Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond rose 6.7% to $23.57 in morning trading.

Two of the new independent directors, Ms. Bowen and Mr. Rosenzweig, would join a four-member strategy committee to explore alternatives to unlock greater value from the company’s buybuy Baby business, which sells baby gear, furniture, clothes and more.

As of Nov. 27, Bed Bath & Beyond operated 133 buybuy Baby stores.

The segment has grown sales for four consecutive quarters, the company said in January, and comparable sales increased in the midteens in the fiscal third quarter, driven by double-digit growth in stores and high-single digit growth in digital.

RC Ventures also agreed to support the board’s full slate of directors at the annual meeting, the company said. “I appreciate that management and the Board were willing to promptly embrace our ideas and look forward to supporting them in the year ahead,” Mr. Cohen said in a statement.

Mr. Cohen, the billionaire co-founder of online pet-products retailer

Chewy Inc.,

has gained a loyal following after he built a big

GameStop

stake and in November 2020 criticized the company for moving too slowly toward e-commerce. He joined GameStop’s board in January 2021, which contributed to the Reddit-fueled jump in its shares that followed, and took over as chairman in June 2021.

Write to Will Feuer at [email protected]