Filed under: Magazines, Internet, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO)
With its stock sitting in a toilet that would make the housekeeping goddess cringe, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO) is looking for something to boost its operations.
Fortune reports it has learned that the company “has held recent talks with two prominent tastemakers, the fashion designer Cynthia Rowley and Jonathan Adler, known for his home décor, with the aim of building multifaceted brands around these personalities that span television, publishing and the internet.”
The talks have reportedly broken off, but CEO Susan Lyne has said that she is on the prowl for acquisitions. Acquisitions have a bad habit of failing to generate value for the acquirer, and Fortune notes that “The pressure to do a deal will intensify this year, as MSO prepares to take a hit on several fronts.” And therein lies the problem.
The company has historically been unable to generate a profit, and that’s not going to get any better in the near future. An acquisition driven by what amounts to desperation is unlikely to change that. And signing a big star will cost a lot money, and the value of that star’s brand will tend to aggregate to them, not MSO — that’s the nature of licensing deals.
Bottom line: If you want to buy shares of MSO, it should be because you’re bullish on the future of the company as it is now, not because you’re hoping that a management team that has failed to generate value can make a killer acquisition that will restore the company to its once high-flying status.
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