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Pretty amazing news out of Wilmington, DE that Toys.com sold yesterday for $5.1MM to Toys R Us. At the initial auction on February 4, the bidding ended at $1.25MM and I was blown away at the poor execution by the attorney for TRU. He could have locked up the entire portfolio of domains (including Birthdays.com, eParties, Hobbies.com, Pinata.com, and numerous others), plus the eToys and Baby Universe businesses for millions less and not let a bidding war like this ever happen.
The format of the auction broke various assets into about a dozen “lots”. There was preliminary bidding on a lot-by-lot basis (I was bidding against TRU for eToys, with my own price reaching $750k), and later in the evening, there was a “multi-lot” auction when anyone could go back and bundle specific lots together and raise the price. It’s here where the TRU attorney missed the boat. He should have bundled everything except the “PoshTots” and “MyTwinn” assets, plus the lot that included all the unsold inventory, and put a price in the $3.75-$4MM range, and he’d have won. Instead they paid $7.25MM — $5.1MM for Toys.com + $2.15 for eToys, Baby Universe and ePregnancy.
This isn’t a “hindsight is 20/20″ kind of thing….At 2am, live from the attorney’s office, I voiced my disbelief at the strategy they were taking. I ultimately fault the Toys R Us management for sending an attorney to the auction alone instead of a business development person or other business-minded executive. Maybe $3MM is chump change to TRU and their private equity backers (KKR Group, Bain Capital and Vornado Realty Trust), but for an entrepreneur like me, it’s a glaring example of why the country’s in the state it’s in — bad management seems to be the rule, rather than the exception!
Posted 1 year ago at 9:42 am. Add a comment
How great is this picture?
Posted 1 year ago at 2:44 am. 3 comments
As the expression goes, when the US gets a cold, the rest of the world catches the flu…And when the US gets the flu, the rest of the world comes won with pneumonia! I’m getting a first-hand look at the impact our bad economy has on tourism…
I’m sitting poolside @ the Brahma Blue, a beautiful and private hotel located on its own private island near San Pedro, Belize, which is located on Ambergris Caye. Music fans may remember Madonna’s La Isla Bonita — “Last night I dreamt of San Pedro” — which was inspired by her visit to this beautiful place. To give you a sense of how remote it is, when you arrive in Belize City (via air or cruise ship), you have to take a boat (a little over an hour) or puddle-jumper (~20 minutes) to San Pedro. Brahma Blue is actually on another island that’s a 5-minute “water taxi” ride from San Pedro. The resort has only been open since November, and the deadly combination of a bad economy and minimal marketing is clearly evident. We’re literally the ONLY guests out of 14 rooms (I’m told they’re expecting 2 arrivals today). But other than the skeleton crew of hotel staff members, we’re basically the only ones on this little island as far as the eye can see!
An informal survey of the staff here and various other hotels and restaurants we’ve visited over the past couple of days have said business is down 50% or more than usual for this time of year.
We spent our first night of the trip at Hotel Yakunah in Progreso, Mexico, before boarding The World, a luxurious cruise ship that is more of a floating “luxury condo development” than a cruise ship. I’ll blog about our 6 days on The World in a separate entry. The very pleasant owner-operators also said their occupancy is down — and we’re talking about a $50/night place.
Posted 1 year ago at 11:16 am. Add a comment
Their only play is to root against Obama, hope he fails, and watch things get worse!
My feeling is it’s going to be a looooong, dark period for Republicans. As long as Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin are considered “leaders”, they will a minority party for a very long time.
Unless the country spirals into a deep, protacted recession, I see the Republicans continued demise as inevitable, given that the only people they seem to cater to are rich white people and religious Christians from the South who don’t believe in evolution.
Posted 1 year ago at 10:01 am. Add a comment
Tsavo got some coverage in TechCrunch yesterday, which mentioned the acquisition of Better — the deal was officially announced last September. Although I no longer have a day-to-day role @ Tsavo, I’m rooting for them from the sidelines!
Last week, TechCrunch covered the eToys auction, which I attended live.
Posted 1 year ago at 8:11 am. Add a comment
Just got back from spending several days in Wilmington, DE attending the bankruptcy auction for “The Parent Company”, which included the businesses of eToys, Baby Universe, and several other business units, along with a valuable domain portfolio. I was taking a stab at acquiring eToys and/or Toys.com, but some big guns were there and prices were higher than I was prepared to pay for the biggest assets.
It was an absolutely CRAZY day of ups and downs. I arrived @ 10am Wednesday and didn’t leave until nearly 2:30am — and the action involving eToys & Toys.com was *still* going on! The high bidder for eToys + Baby Universe assets — an LLC we believe to be an acquisition vehicle of Toys R Us — paid $2,150,000, and a group backed by some big domain industry guys paid $1,250,000 for the Toys.com site. I’m the “back-up” bid for eToys.com @ $750,000, but it’s highly doubtful that the other deal falls apart.
I didn’t leave empty-handed. On behalf of a friend, we acquired the following names:
- Birthdays.com, .net & .org
- Birthday.net
- Ebirthdays.com
- E-birthdays.com & .net
- Happybirthdays.com
- eParties.com
- Pinata.com
Fun to be mentioned in TechCrunch. Also see Ron Jackson’s coverage on the event in DN Journal.
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 10:45 am. Add a comment