Police: Bed Bath & Beyond CFO Falls to Death from NYC’s ‘Jenga’ Tower

Bed Bath & Beyond’s chief financial officer (CFO) plunged to his death Friday from New York’s “Jenga” tower in Manhattan.

Fifty-two-year-old Gustavo Arnal joined the company two years ago, Reuters reported Sunday.

Police responded to the scene that afternoon and found a man dead. Authorities identified him as Arnal.

Details on what led to the incident were not immediately reported, but police said the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office would determine the cause of death.

A photo showed first responders wheeling a body bag away from the scene:

Bed Bath & Beyond exec ID'd as Tribeca 'Jenga Building' jumper: source https://t.co/m4RTdtXGHZ pic.twitter.com/QhzsWOv0Ac

— New York Post (@nypost) September 4, 2022

Arnal recently sold 55,013 shares in the company, per Reuter’s calculations. The sales totaled over $1 million, and he still held nearly 155,400 shares, the outlet continued:

On Aug. 23, the company, Arnal and major shareholder Ryan Cohen were sued over accusations of artificially inflating the firm’s stock price in a “pump and dump” scheme, with the lawsuit alleging Arnal sold off his shares at a higher price after the scheme.

The filing reportedly claimed Arnal “agreed to regulate all insider sales by BBBY’s officers and directors to ensure that the market would not be inundated with a large number of BBBY shares at a given time.”

Meanwhile, the chain store experienced trouble after trying to promote more of its own brand of items.

Bed Bath & Beyond’s shares recently lost almost a quarter of their value after the company announced it was restructuring, the Associated Press (AP) reported Wednesday.

“The company said it has obtained more than $500 million of new financing and was reducing 20 percent of its workforce. It plans to close about 150 namesake stores but will keep its buybuy Baby chain,” the article read.

In June, Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) began slashing hours and dialing back on air conditioning as the plague of inflation continued, according to analysts covering the company for Bank of America.

“From our channel checks and store visits, we believe that BBBY is trying to quickly trim expenses to align costs with comp declines,” the analysts told clients in a note.

Meanwhile, video footage showed how the tower located at 56 Leonard resembled the Jenga game:

It “proved highly challenging to engineer and construct,” according to B1M, which noted it was 60 stories tall.