New York, Sep 4 The financial head of Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBB), a giant home goods chain, has died after reportedly falling to his death from a residential skyscraper in the city.
Gustavo Arnal's apparent suicide on Saturday followed the chain's announcement earlier in the week that it would shutter 150 of its nearly 1,000 stores and slash its workforce by 20 per cent.
According to police, he jumped off the 18th floor of a 60-storey skyscraper in Manhattan known as the "Jenga Building" because of its peculiar architecture that resembles the misaligned blocks in the Jenga game.
Arnal, 52, joined BBB as the Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President in 2020.
His LinkedIn post said that Arnal had his college and post-graduate education in Venezuela.
BBB, which did well in the early days of the pandemic when online orders surged, faced a financial crisis after sales fell 26 per cent in the second quarter this year compared to last year, according to National Public Radio, quoting the company.
Its CEO Mark Tritton, who was instrumental in hiring Arnbal, quit in June after only about three years with the company.
Arnal joined the company from Avon, the personal care and toiletry company known for using a salesforce of part-time influencers, after having worked for Walgreens-Boots and Proctor & Gamble, according to BBB.
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