From Bloomberg News | Shareholders on Tuesday sued Playboy Enterprises and founder Hugh Hefner, charging that Hefner’s bid to take the company private denies them the best price for their shares.
Inside these posts: Hugh Hefner
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Hugh Hefner, Penthouse pursue Playboy
Hugh Hefner with a dozen Playboy Bunnies at the original Chicago Playboy Club in 1960. (Playboy)
Shares in Playboy Enterprises Inc. surged nearly 35 percent this morning after its board of directors said it received a proposal from Hugh Hefner to acquire all of the outstanding shares of the struggling media company for $5.50 per share in cash.
Hefner, 84, currently owns 69.5 percent of Playboy’s Class A common stock and 27.7 percent of its Class B common stock, and has teamed with a Michigan private equity firm called Rizvi Traverse Management LLC to fund the bid for the shares he doesn’t own.
The Hefner bid values Playboy at $185 million but could spark an auction for the company. Marc Bell, chief executive of FriendFinder Networks Inc., which owns the rival Penthouse adult franchise, said he is readying a competing bid for Playboy. Get the full story »
