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Martha Stewart’s Cooking School
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is reported to sell the empire to Sequential Brands Group Inc. according to WSJ citing an anonymous source.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia was founded by Martha Stewart in 1996, with a three-way focus: publishing, merchandising and broadcasting.
After repeated reports of new investments fueling the empire’s businesses, the company is now reported to be selling everything to Sequential Brands, retail-licensing operator that would pinpoint the end of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia independent publishing.
An empire build on monetizing the aspirational occupations of cooking, home arrangements, wedding design, gardening and others, Martha Stewart’s company is now only a fraction of the market worth it once stood for.
The selling announcement came as a surprise after only last month, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia CEO Dan Dienst announced that the company was:
“fully focused on top-line growth by continuing to create our highly monetizable licensed content.”
Martha Stewart, now aged 73 created a remarkable business aimed at homemakers. In 2004 her efforts were shortly halted when she spent five months behind bars for having obstructed governmental investigations looking at stock sales. Returning at the helms of her empire, she started facing the same problems that are ushering other media and publishing empires.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia experience a surge on Thursday after the announcement of an acquisition by Sequential Brands came out. The stocks jumped by 26 percent, aligning the Martha Stewart Living at a value of 356 million dollars.
Year to year sales have been on a constant decrease for Martha Stewart’s empires since 2007 until 2014 when the sales were reported to have decreased by 11.7 percent.
Sequential Brands Inc.’s stock also jumped 13 percent following the news of the acquisition. Sequential Brands is handling a wide portfolio of brands focused on lifestyle segment. Jessica Simpson fashion line was acquired by the company which expects 25 million worth of sales in the next year.
So far, no details have been provided on the merger. A more detailed plan could be following the next days.
Image Source: fashionpluslifestyle.com
