Kim Kahn

Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Lunch, our afternoon update on today's market action, news, and analysis.

Good afternoon.

Today is Wednesday, January 7th, and I'm your host, Kim Kahn.

Our top story so far, GameStop's CEO is making a moonshot bet on a return to meme-era valuations.

GameStop announced that its board approved a long-term performance-based stock option award for chief executive Ryan Cohen with no guaranteed compensation.

The package only pays out if the company hits a series of aggressive market value and profit targets.

The award covers options on 171.5 million GameStop shares at an exercise price of $20.66, split into nine tranches tied to market cap and cumulative performance EBITDA.

The stock trades around $21.75 today.

And the milestones?

They start at a $20 billion market cap and $2 billion in cumulative EBITDA and scale up in 10% increments.

Full vesting requires GameStop to reach $100 billion market cap and $10 billion in cumulative EBITDA, numbers that would eclipse even the peak of the mean stock frenzy.

For context, GameStop's current market value is $9.3 billion.

Its all-time high was $33.7 billion during the 2021 short squeeze.

Also in the salary sphere, new Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel will receive an annual cash salary of $25 million, effective January 1st.

That's a major jump from Warren Buffett's long-time compensation, a $100,000 base salary, and just over $305,000 in additional pay.

Among active stocks, that's all folks, at least as far as Warner Bros.

Discovery's board is concerned.

The board unanimously rejected Paramount Skydance's amended tender offer, saying it still undervalues the company, leads too heavily on debt, and leaves shareholders exposed if the deal falls through.

WBD reiterated its support for the Netflix tie-up and urged investors to reject Paramount's bid.

D-Wave Quantum is gaining attention after agreeing to buy Quantum Circuits for $550 million, a mix of stock and cash.