(PresidentialHill.com)- Last Friday, the Chief Financial Officer of Bed Bath & Beyond died from an apparent suicide after jumping to his death from his luxury Manhattan home, leaving behind a wife and two children.
Gustavo Arnal, 52, died from multiple blunt trauma injuries. Police said Arnal’s injuries were consistent with a fall from an elevated position.
On Sunday, the medical examiner’s office ruled his death a suicide.
Arnal’s suicide came just days after Bed Bath & Beyond announced that it would be closing around 150 of its more than 700 stores, laying off about 20 percent of its 32,000 employees.
Last Wednesday, the company’s stock fell more than 21 percent, for a total loss this year of 65 percent.
Arnal, a Venezuelan immigrant, lived at 56 Leonard Street, the 60-story skyscraper nicknamed the “Jenga Building,” along with his wife who was home at the time of his suicide.
Before joining Bed Bath & Beyond, Arnal held executive positions at Avon cosmetics, Walgreens, and Procter & Gamble.
He received an undergraduate degree from the Universidad Simon Bolivar and a masters in finance from the Universidad Metropolitana, both in Caracas, Venezuela.
In 2021, Arnal earned $2.9 million as Bed Bath & Beyond’s Chief Financial Officer, including a $775,000 salary and stock awards.
Last month, Arnal sold over 42,500 shares in Bed Bath & Beyond stock worth more than a million dollars.
Stock in Bed Bath & Beyond took a significant hit last month after a key investor sold all of his nearly 7.8 million shares.
Ten years ago, Bed Bath & Beyond was valued at $17 billion. But when Arnal took the job of CFO in May 2020, its value was less than $1 billion.
The week before his suicide, Arnal had been named in a $1.2 billion “pump and dump” lawsuit filed against Bed Bath & Beyond and GameStop chairman Ryan Cohen where he was accused of artificially raising the stock price to cash in.
