Blackstone’s half-price Ideal World channel sale

[Graham]

Blackstone is poised to sell off the Ideal World home shopping channel for less than half the price it paid for the business.

The world’s largest private equity firm has appointed advisers from Deloitte to find a buyer quickly for the channel’s parent company Ideal Shopping Direct.

The business has previously exploited the rapid growth of the “crafting” market, yet its trading is said to have been suffering more recently following the launch of Hochanda.

Companies House records show that Michael Hancox, 52, the chief executive of Ideal Shopping Direct since 2008, left the business on May 30.

Staff at Peterborough's Ideal Shopping Direct are facing an uncertain future, based in Newark Road, where it employs about 500 people.

A spokesman for Blackstone confirmed the company was for sale and it was talking to potential buyers.

He said: "Following a review of their portfolio priorities, and a number of approaches, Blackstone have decided to run a formal process to seek expressions of interest for Ideal Shopping Direct Ltd."

Ideal Shopping Direct comprises Ideal World, Create and Craft, Craft Channel Productions, Ideal Sourcing and Deramores, selling on-line and through broadcast TV on Freeview channels 22 and 23, Freesat, Sky and Virgin in the UK and the DISH satellite network in the USA.

Ideal Shopping Direct was bought by Blackstone after it had been put on the market by former owner private equity company Inflexion, which had priced it at £200 million. Blackstone has always refused to say how much it spent on the purchase.

 

[deanos]

Blackstone is poised to sell off the Ideal World home shopping channel for less than half the price it paid for the business.

. Blackstone has always refused to say how much it spent on the purchase.

? .

 

[mr tom]

With all due respect, I wonder who would be silly enough to buy it?

Not that I wish job losses on anyone.

 

[Wirral70]

Item Number 123456
Ideal World with FREE Goons
Usual Price £200,000,000
Pick of The Day Price £50
4 x Flexipay £12.50

I wonder if the shat hit the fan once they ran out of iPad 3’s? :mysmilie_59:

 

[Price Plunge]

Someone might be interested in buying Create and Craft but only if it is cheap enough. Can't see any future for Ideal World unless a company's prepared to invest in new and exclusive product ranges (almost impossible under current circumstances), and the soon-to-launch Paramount Network TV channel will no doubt be interested in acquiring another Freeview channel slot for a +1 channel.

Recent signs that Ideal World is now under pressure:

• Reduced variety of products being sold on TV; today's mainly fashion and "Cooking with Jamie Oliver"
• More time devoted to 'sub-letting' Ideal World to other products/services (Solos Holidays being the latest example)
• Stunts like an alleged mis-pricing of a Vostok watch of which Kevin accidentally let slip that it was the 'correct' price
• Increased use of pressure selling techniques such as 60 minute deals with alarm klaxons similar to Bid TV used to do

Will QVC end up being the last surviving general merchandise TV shopping channel?

 

[Retrovertigo]

I'm truly honestly shocked (honest) as whenever you watch one of the shows, they are always monstrously busy and in danger of selling out of items.

 

[mr tom]

Someone might be interested in buying Create and Craft but only if it is cheap enough. Can't see any future for Ideal World unless a company's prepared to invest in new and exclusive product ranges (almost impossible under current circumstances), and the soon-to-launch Paramount Network TV channel will no doubt be interested in acquiring another Freeview channel slot for a +1 channel.

Recent signs that Ideal World is now under pressure:

• Reduced variety of products being sold on TV; today's mainly fashion and "Cooking with Jamie Oliver"
• More time devoted to 'sub-letting' Ideal World to other products/services (Solos Holidays being the latest example)
• Stunts like an alleged mis-pricing of a Vostok watch of which Kevin accidentally let slip that it was the 'correct' price
• Increased use of pressure selling techniques such as 60 minute deals with alarm klaxons similar to Bid TV used to do

Will QVC end up being the last surviving general merchandise TV shopping channel?

On some level qvc is simply too big to die. More in a context that they have positioned themselves as the brand name for their industry. We know it as selly-telly but the general public are likely to call selly telly "qvc" as that is how they have been conditioned.

It would be hard to entirely kill off selly telly as it still has people believing it is the best way of seeing the product, if they can't physically touch it.

 

[Mommabear]

I'm truly honestly shocked (honest) as whenever you watch one of the shows, they are always monstrously busy and in danger of selling out of items.

Shaun's 'not being funny'....he's just stated that he's having one of the busiest Monday's ever