Media World: Hugh Hefner is looking for a sugar daddy
Filed under: Company News, Columns
Hugh Hefner, America's favorite girl-chasing geezer, may sell the Playboy empire he built more than 50 years ago.According to the New York Post, Playboy Enterprises Inc. (PLA) is being "quietly" shopped around to private equity firms for about $300 million. That's roughly three times the market capitalization of the Chicago-based company. No wonder the Post is reporting that Apollo Capital Partners and Providence Equity Partners, which have been approached, have yet to make an offer. Perhaps Hefner thinks the company is worth quite a bit more than the investment bankers do.
Hefner still has about a 70 percent ownership interest in Playboy. There are many reasons both emotional and financial that may make him reluctant to sell. After all, Hefner is synonymous with the brand in part because of the swinging lifestyle he leads at the company-owned Playboy Mansion. A new owner of Playboy may sell the Beverly Hills fantasy island to raise cash.
"Hefner, now 83 years old, said recently that one of his biggest regrets was taking Playboy public," the Post said.
It's easy to see why.
Shares of Playboy, which have run up a bit lately along with the rest of the market, have plunged nearly 80 percent over the past five years amid declining revenue at the company's flagship magazine. Some investors are taking an interest in the stock, betting that the company would get sold once Hefner joins the great pajama party in the sky.
Playboy retains a tiny vestige of what made it cool. Young male celebrities still will give their firstborn for an invitation to one of Hefner's famous parties. But that doesn't do shareholders much good amid the explosion of free adult content online.
For the quarter ended March 31, the Chicago reported a net loss of $13.7 million, or 41 cents a share, up from $4.2 million. This compares to a net loss in the same period last year of $4.2 million, or 13 cents per share. Revenue declined to $61.6 million from $78.5 million a year before.
Selling Playboy may prove more difficult for Hefner than convincing women young enough to be his great-grandaughters that he is good boyfriend material.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
5-22-2009 @ 2:06PM
doug said...
eighty three my gosh how the time has flown . I remember wanting to get a peek at the good ole center fold . but everyone wanted to "read it for the amazeing editorials" ya bull it was "t" and " a" everyone was looking at hef could have written about pigs in mud and at that time everyone would have "read" it lol no the times have changed and ole hef is from a differant era. and his girl friend cant dance either lol .
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5-22-2009 @ 3:38PM
Robert said...
I'd like to have 1/3 of the girls he's had. He's lived a great life, no regrets I hope.
myspace.com/anotherblackseason
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5-22-2009 @ 3:54PM
barbydoc said...
Hef will be remembered as the forerunner of the sexual revolution,along with masters and johnson and the Kinsey report
he was right on time
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5-22-2009 @ 3:56PM
Lynn said...
Not too sure that "great pajama party" is going to be in the sky!
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5-22-2009 @ 3:59PM
dxxy4u said...
Hugh help make Bill Cosby into a Household name. I remember back when Hugh had his Playboy Show on Saturday nights. Cosby would come down stairs in his PJs in the middle of Playboys' wild partying, tell a joke to Hugh, then go back up stairs looking nonchalant. Playboy was IN then.
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5-22-2009 @ 5:42PM
jeff said...
Having met Hefner, when the empire started in Chicago, I can honestly say that he's done great for a guy with a personally duller than a block of wood! An old associate by the name of Vic Lowns was 90% responsible for the success of Playboy & Hugh Hefner! Without Vic Lowns Hefner couldn't make out in a harlem whore house with a 1000.00 bill.
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5-22-2009 @ 5:44PM
KG said...
Having a Playboy mag was the coolest thing around at college some 10's of years ago. Up until around 30, I bought every issue. Then career, marriage, children etc. I had other priorities to contend with. Hate to see this icon disappear however.
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5-22-2009 @ 6:02PM
BOOWAH said...
One word for the magazine Playboy puts out today....BORING! Lets see some pubic hair. We dont need so much nudity. The mistique of a partially clad female is enough to drive our imagination wild. The old Playboy centerfolds, with their bobbed hair and sometimes flowing locks dressed in their tiny cheerleader skirts with nothing underneath....now that's erotic. And get your models to exude vulnerability. Can those dominatrix, womens lib expressions that you think we enjoy.
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5-22-2009 @ 6:30PM
WPCort said...
Playboy public was never a good idea. It's the kind of stock that mutual fund managers flee from--lousy return and downright Ayn-Randish morals. There is palpable disrespect for women and support for abortion in a culture that is now over 50% pro-life. Farewell. This guy ought to be thinking about repentance prior to permanently checking out of the mansion.
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5-22-2009 @ 8:01PM
Portia said...
That rag should die with him. Thanks to his stupid "philosophy", there are very few men in this country. Most of the males remain emotional adolescents all their lives.
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5-22-2009 @ 8:58PM
Raffael Zuccaro said...
All this Ugly PIMP did was Relegate women to third class whores and prostitutes!!! No, and much more-- He taught young men how to look at women as PLAYTHINGS and sex TOYS- They really have NO RESPECT for real beauty, which is on the INSIDE!!!! Ill bet there are many bunnies who wish they never have met that OLD DECADENT BASTARD!!!
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5-22-2009 @ 9:03PM
Orr said...
Whoa! Portia, back off the jets. Few men in this country...? Now lookee here... When that girl married that soldier-boy before he was sent overseas into a war zone, I admit that she probably married just that...a boy. But after living and fighting in the world of... ka-ka and blowing away insurgents, he came back to her as a man. Do you think she can accept and appreciate that new man in her life? Hell NO! I live in a military town, and the newspaper is filled with articles about how a young wife complains that the man she married isn't the same man who came back from the war. No shitze! You now have a man in your house who expects to wear the pants in the family and the wife is unwilling to relinquish that role. I see it all the time. If he even begins to suggest that things have to change around the house, the kids, or the bedroom she runs off to her momma or the cops and says that she is being abused. I say if you can't find a man in this country it's because you can't handle a man, in the first place. Nuff said.
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5-22-2009 @ 9:49PM
David said...
Hef
How do you do what you do with that pencil dick ?
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5-22-2009 @ 10:34PM
mike said...
Hope he has some fireproof pajamas!
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5-23-2009 @ 2:11AM
AC said...
It's a safe bet that 'ol Hef has done a lot better than most of the posters in here.
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5-23-2009 @ 2:42AM
Dave said...
I'll be glad to step in for you, Hef. I'm sophisticated, charming, and good looking. BTW -- what Playboy has lost in mainstream -- it has gained in nostalgia.
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5-23-2009 @ 5:36AM
Squiggles said...
I never saw the point of having a sleaze mag like Playboy, but I think it must be the only way ugly teenage boys and men even get close to getting some action, albeit by their own palms.
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5-23-2009 @ 9:11AM
John said...
Hugh Hefner established a standard for the type of magazine he produces. The others were always "wanna-be" Playboys, and never had the class and style Hefner put in the pages of his publication.
Penthouse and Hustler were always "trashy" compared to the prestige of Playboy, and regardless of the outcome of the Playboy Empire, I am sure that Hugh Hefner will remain a standard for all who have aspired to publish a magazine that showed the best qualities of his guests.
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5-23-2009 @ 9:27AM
Bill said...
I remember as a kid in 1950s & early 60s Mississippi going into drug stores & drooling over the Playboy covers. I didn't have enough money to buy one. Since then I've been a subscriber for over 40 years & still love the mag & the guy. He supported us in Vietnam. I'll never forget him for that...while many in the U.S. turned their backs on us.
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5-23-2009 @ 5:45PM
Patty said...
Do you honestly believe that Hef will go to the pajama party in the sky??? If I were a betting man I think a safe bet would be to disagree!!!!!!!
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