Boo.com Is Picked Apart

Baldwin Louie — Wed, 31 May 2000 18:00:00 -0400

How much could a buggy Web site and a tarnished brand name fetch on the open market? If it's Boo.com, apparently not much.

KPMG Corporate Recovery, the liquidators for the defunct sportswear merchant, were able to peddle off Boo's back-end technology to London-based e-commerce technology outfit Bright Station for the bargain price of $375,000, it was announced Tuesday. That leaves behind the onerous task of finding a buyer for the rest of Boo.

The sale of the e-commerce site, and any Boo trademarks associated with it, is still being pursued, said Mick McLouglin, a partner at KPMG in London. McLoughlin said a potential buyer has been identified, but he wouldn't disclose the identity nor would he say when he expected a deal to be done.

But it appears that the sexiest and most expensive component of Boo has already been nabbed. "The way I see it, we've purchased the most important part," says Dan Wagner, CEO of Bright Station. Wagner will integrate the Boo technology into Bright Station's e-commerce services business, dubbed Sparza.

What Wagner particularly liked about the Boo technology was that it could handle orders across multiple languages and multiple currencies. Wagner intends to sell this feature to clients. "It is often very difficult for these companies to build up the IT support and software that is necessary to perform these tasks," explains Wagner.

Wagner said he had no interest in the Boo site or its trademark. He added that he has no knowledge of a potential sale.

The sale of Boo, either as a whole entity or in parts, was seen as a crucial step in paying back Boo's lengthy list of creditors. KPMG had disclosed that Boo had amassed $25 million in unpaid bills when it folded two weeks ago. The company had squandered an estimated $125 million in funding that it raised last year from a slew of prominent backers, including J.P. Morgan, members of the Benetton family and luxury-goods magnate Bernard Arnault. The backers reportedly passed on giving founders Ernst Malmsten and Kajsa Leander an eleventh-hour funding injection. Instead, the board voted to turn over the company to KPMG liquidators to find a buyer or group of buyers.

McLoughlin said that neither Bright Station nor any other potential buyer would assume Boo's $25 million debt. The proceeds of the sale would go toward paying back some of the creditors, he added.

The Industry Standard - Boo.com Is Picked Apart - Comments

Boo.com Is Picked Apart