Playboy Enterprises

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
This article has been tagged since September 2006.

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. New Playboy, Inc.

Type	Public (NYSE: PLA, NYSE: PLAA)
Founded	Chicago, Illinois (1953)
Headquarters	Chicago, Illinois, USA
Key people	Hugh Hefner, Founder Christie Hefner, Chairman of the Board and CEO
Industry	Lifestyle / Erotica
Products	Playboy Magazine Playboy TV Playboy.com
Revenue	$338.15 million USD (2005)^[1]
Employees	Official Site
Website	PlayboyEnterprises.com

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE: PLA), also organized as New Playboy, Inc. (NYSE: PLAA), is the company founded by Hugh Hefner to manage the Playboy magazine empire. It was created in 1953 as the HMH Publishing Co., Inc. for the purpose of publishing the Playboy Magazine. The business quickly expanded beyond the magazine and began to develop and distribute a wider range of adult entertainment. It eventually went public under the current name in 1971. Christie Hefner, the daughter of Hugh Hefner, has been the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for Playboy Enterprises since 1981.

Today, Playboy Enterprises, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development and distribution of adult entertainment including some of the most hardcore video content available in the market today. Via its CJI unit, the company is one of the nation's largest producers of hardcore adult film. The Playboy brand is one of the most widely recognized and popular brands in the world. The Company's is structured with three business segments: Publishing, Entertainment, and Licensing.

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. occupies the 14th (Playboy.com), 15th (main) and 16th (corporate/executive) floors of 680 N. Lake Shore Drive (formerly 666 N. Lake Shore Drive) in Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood. The company employed 725 full-time employees as of February 28, 2006.

1 Divisions
2 Investor Information
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] Divisions

Publishing Group:
- Playboy magazine
- Playboy Newsstand Specials
- Oui magazine (1972–1981)
Entertainment Group:
- Playboy TV (formerly the Playboy Channel)
- Spice Network (Consists of 12 digital networks)
- Online group:
  - Playboy.com
  - PlayboyStore.com
  - Playboy Cyber Club
  - Playboy Plus
  - Playboy.net
Licensing Group:
- Handles Playboy trademarks on apparel, accessories, collectibles (like: trading cards, toy cars, dolls, etc.) and more
College Division
- Playboy on Campus

Playboy also ran forty Playboy Club properties from 1960 to 1986. The company is returning to nightlife business with the Playboy Club at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. And Playboy is hunting other casino licensing deals in Macau and London. Meanwhile, the company says it will open at least three Playboy stores in each of the next three years.[1]

The company is connected with the Playboy Foundation, a corporate giving organization that provides grants to non-profit groups involved in fighting censorship and researching human sexuality.

Hugh Hefner, who founded Playboy, continues to oversee Playboy. However, his daughter Christie runs day to day operations.

[edit] Investor Information

Playboy has two classes of stock.

NYSE: PLA are the actively traded class B shares without voting rights. As of November 2006 there were 28,341,000 shares outstanding with a market capitalization of about $350 million. The 3 month average trading volume was 239,262 shares.

NYSE: PLAA are the closely held class A voting shares. As of November 2006 there were 4,864,000 shares outstanding with a market capitalization of about $55 million. The 3 month average trading volume was 2818 shares.