🠈 Brookstone 🠊
Brookstone
Brookstone offers an online catalog with an eclectic collection of unique gifts and travel products. The company had stores in malls through the country but has reduced their retail footprint to stores in major airports.
This is an article I published with LeoFinance.
The company has an affiliate program with Commission Junction. I might receive a commission on sales through for the Brookstone Link in this paragraph. I will use the commission to pay for this web site. They also have an Amazon Store
Brookstone's headquarters are in Peterborough, NH. The chain is currently owned by a partnership between Bluestar Alliance and Apex Digital.
Corporate History and Timeline
The company was founded with a $500 investment in 1965 by Pierre de Beaumont who loved to tinker at his New Hampshire farm. Pierre was the son of Count François de Beaumont. He had worked as a mechanical engineer for Packard Motor Company. The farm was called Brookstone.
The company provided hard to find products for hobbyists. The company started with a single ad in Popular Mechanics. It then expanded to a catalog.
The company opened its first store, near its New Hampshire Distribution Center, in 1973. They attempted to expand throughout New England. They discovered that things that sold well in catalogs did not sell well in the stores. The company ended up with two different supply chains which became problematic as they expanded.
Quaker Oats acquired the firm in 1980 and expanded it into a chain with 150 stores primarily in malls and airports.
The company passed through a mix of owners and suffered two bankruptcies. Today the company offers an online catalog with unique products and operates a dozen or so airport shops.
The primary resources for the timeline are Funding Universe and Wikipedia.1,2
- 1965: Pierre and Marry de Beaumont found a catalog store in NH with a $500 investment. It is named after the family farm.
- 1973: Company opens its first retail location.
- 1980: Quaker Oats acquired Brookstone.
- 1985: Pierre de Beaumont inherited the Mutt and Jeff comic strip from his mother Aedita de Beaumont3
- 1907: Bud Fisher began drawing the Mutt and Jeff comic strip for the sports page of the San Francisco Chronical. This was one the first comic strips.
- 1925: Bud married Aedita (who was both a countess and chorus girl). They quickly became estranged.
- 1954: Aedita inherited the strip.
- 1986: Quaker spun off Brookstone to an investment group that included Greylock Management, Duncan, Cook and Co. and Fidelity Ventures.
- 1993: The company had sales of $143.7 million and held an IPO on NASDAQ with symbol BKST.2
- 1994: Brookstone built a 200,000 squarefoot distribution center in Mexico, Missouri to help consolidate the distribution for its stores and catalog.
- 2005: Singapore based Osim International, Temasek Holdings and JW Childs acquired Brookstone for $430 million.5
- 2014: Brookstone missed a payment to bondholders and enter bankruptcy procedures.
- 2014: Spencer's made a bid to buy the company as it entered bankruptcy.
- 2014: The China based firms Sailing Capital and Sanpower acquired Brookstone during the bankruptcy for more than $173 million.1
- 2018: Brookstone filed a second bankruptcy and closed 101 mall based stores.
- 2019: A partnership of Bluestar Alliance and Apex Digital acquired Brookstone in $65 million deal.6
References:
- Wikipedia - Brookstone (Drawn 10/1/2020)
- Funding Universe - Brookstone (Drawn 10/1/2020)
- Wikipedia - Mutt and Jeff (Drawn 10/1/2020)
- NY Times - Pierre de Beaumont Dies (Drawn 10/1/2020)
- MarketWatch - Brookstone to be Acquired by Osim (Drawn 10/1/2020)
- Chain Store Age - Brookstone Emerges from Bankruptcy (Drawn 10/1/2020)