Cooper Hefner, the youngest son of Hugh Hefner, made a $100 million offer on Monday to buy back the Playboy brand and intellectual property from Playboy Group.
Hefner, 33, told the Wall Street Journal, “It’s a great American company and a great American brand, outside of my personal connection to it,” adding that it “has been managed to a state of potentially nonexistence.”
He blamed current management for entering businesses that they’ve never operated before,” whose products are “not resonating at all with consumers or customers or fans. And the business’s decline and the brand’s relevance — in terms of being hardly spoken about today — is a direct reflection of that.”
The company went public in 2021 but has seen its shares fall more than 90% since since then: As of Friday, its market value was slightly over $50 million and the company carries more than $200 million in debt per WSJ.
Hefner , who served as Playboy’s CCO from 2016 to 2019, would become the new CEO of Playboy and run the brand privately through his investment firm, Hefner Capital. He aims to revive the brand with licensing opportunities and media partnerships, such as documentaries.
The separate parts of the business, which include the social-media app Dream and the Australian-based lingerie manufacturer Honey Birdette, would be renamed, according to the proposal viewed by the WSJ.
Hugh Hefner founded the men’s magazine in 1953 and launched his highly successful chain of Playboy Clubs in 1960, which had largely shuttered by the ’90s. In their heyday, Playboy Clubs stretched from New York to Chicago, Baltimore, Dallas and Los Angeles.
Hefer died in 2017 and Playboy magazine ceased publication in 2020.
Other investors in his son’s $100 million offer include an unnamed hedge fund and one of Playboy’s former licensing partners
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