Chewy Shares Soar 20% After SEC Filing Reveals 'Roaring Kitty' Keith Gill Holds 6.6% Stake

Shares of Tough appeared in premarket trading Monday after a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that meme stock trader “Roaring Kitty” had acquired a stake in the e-commerce pet food retailer.

The submission showed that Roaring Kitty, whose legal name is Keith Gill, bought just over 9 million shares — representing a 6.6% stake in the company. That makes him Chewy’s third-largest shareholder, according to FactSet. Based on Friday’s closing price, that stake is valued at more than $245 million.

Before the bell, the stock was up more than 20%.

The SEC filing also included a section that said, “Check the appropriate box to indicate if you are a cat.” There was an “x” next to an answer that said, “I'm not a cat.” This phrase was included in Gill's statement during a series of congressional hearings on the 2021 GameStop trading mania.

Chewy shares took a wild ride last week after Gill posted a photo of a cartoon dog resembling Chewy’s logo on social media platform X. Shares rose as much as 34% on Thursday but ended the day slightly down.

CNBC emailed Chewy PR requesting comment on the new shareholder.

Gill is known as a champion of GameStop and has boosted trading in the video game company in recent months. In mid-June, he announced a stake of 9.001 million GameStop shares after exiting his huge call option position. It's unclear whether he sold his GameStop bet to finance the purchase of Chewy.

Shares of GameStop fell 6.5% in premarket Monday after the news.

There is a big connection between GameStop and Chewy. GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen was the founder and CEO of Chewy, who played a key role in PetSmart’s acquisition of Chewy in 2017 and subsequent IPO in 2019.

Cohen joined GameStop's board of directors in January 2021, along with two other Chewy directors, helping lead the first GameStop rally. Later, in 2023, he took over as CEO of GameStop, leading a turnaround at the brick-and-mortar video game retailer.

In a recent YouTube livestream, Gill said that GameStop is in the second phase of a reinvention, and that it has become a bet on Cohen himself, who has led a turnaround and pivot to e-commerce.

Gill is a former marketer for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance. He came into the spotlight after successfully encouraging retail investors to buy GameStop stock and call options in 2021 to squeeze out short-selling hedge funds.