Playboy set for Wall Street listing as iconic publisher looks to float
The company, founded by Hugh Hefner in 1953 and forever synonymous with nude female centrefolds, said today it will merge with SPAC Mountain Crest Acquisition in a deal that values Playboy at $415m (£323m).
Hugh Hefner’s company has in recent years moved into selling clothes, consumer accessories, gaming and promoting “sexual wellness”.
It stopped printing the magazine which made the company famous earlier this year.
The days of pool parties, centrefolds and even a reality television show based on Hefner and his live-in girlfriends, which introduced the publishing brand to newer, younger audiences are also no more.
Hefner died in 2017 and the Playboy Mansion was sold a year beforehand.
The Hefner family sold its 35 per cent stake in the company for around $35m two years ago.
Chief executive Ben Kohn told Yahoo Finance: “Over the past two years, we shut down almost all of our legacy media businesses, grew our Gen Z and Millennial customer base with new product launches, built out direct-to-consumer capabilities, and grew our licensing business to over $400m in forward-booked cash flows”.
The flotation via merger option for the iconic brand is similar in structure to that used by Virgin Galactic earlier this year.
When the merger is approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US, Playboy will trade under the ticker PLBY
In the UK the publisher-turned-lifestyle company has just launched fragrance and cosmetic lines for men and women.