Schulz Family, Iconix Buy Peanuts



Business Week breaks down the acquisition by the Schulz Family and the apparel-make Iconix of rights to the Charles Schulz characters. They will pay $175 million to United Features Syndicate Inc. and EW Scripps. Iconix will take 80 percent of the brand; the Schulz family 20 percent. Iconix owns a number of fashion-related brands such as London Fog. The article unpacks the staggering number of licensing deals the Peanuts brand has with a variety of major players, both domestically and internationally. It's hard not to see it as a pretty good deal that favors the new owners, but I guess that depends on how the former media company owners employ that cash infusion.

As for the comics themselves, I made a couple of phone calls and am waiting on a third. Eric Reynolds of Complete Peanuts publisher Fantagraphics told CR, "We anticipate no interruption in regard to our current relationship with United Media." Tim King at Scripps told CR the change in ownership "... doesn't necessarily mean no change for [current syndicate strip offering] Classic Peanuts. We'll continue to syndicate well more than 100 comics and features, but the syndicator of Classic Peanuts will be up to Iconix." CR has a call in with Iconix to see if they will consider a change in syndicates as part of their initial ownership moves. While revenue from the strip offering is a relatively minor part of the ballpark-figure $2B Peanuts licensing empire, the strip is still a big player in that business and if its syndication partner were up in the air in any way that would be a major news story.
 
posted 10:45 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives