Qurate Retail Group

Last updated
Qurate Retail, Inc.
FormerlyLiberty Interactive Corporation (2011–2018)
Type Public
ISIN
Industry Media holding company
Predecessor Liberty Media
Founded1991;32 years ago (1991)
Headquarters West Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S. [1]
Key people
John C. Malone (Chairman)
David Rawlinson II
(President and CEO)
Jeffery A. Davis (CFO) [2]
RevenueIncrease2.svg US$14.177 billion (2020)
Increase2.svg US$1.572 billion (2020)
Increase2.svg US$1.204 billion (2020)
Total assets Decrease2.svg US$16.999 billion (2020)
Total equity Decrease2.svg US$3.733 billion (2020)
OwnerJohn C. Malone (6.7%)
Number of employees
28,255 [3]  (2017)
Divisions List of divisions
Website qurateretailgroup.com
Footnotes /references
[4]

Qurate Retail, Inc., also known as Qurate Retail Group, is an American media conglomerate controlled by company chairman John C. Malone, who owns a majority of the voting shares.

Contents

History

1998 launch by Liberty Media

Liberty Interactive logo Liberty Interactive logo.gif
Liberty Interactive logo

Originally a division of Liberty Media, Liberty Interactive was spun-off by Liberty Media on September 28,1998, to form its own entity entitled. The division was formed with the purpose of taking advantage of emerging technologies, such as set-top boxes, to develop interactive programming. The company initially owned 86% of TCI Music Inc. (NASDAQ symbol: TUNE/TUNEP). As of January 1999, E! President and Chief Executive Officer Lee Masters became the new company's CEO, and Bruce Ravenel became the Chief Technology Officer. [5]

On September 10, 1999, Liberty Media Group renamed TCI Music to Liberty Digital Inc. (NASDAQ symbol: LDIG), with the new company trading on NASDAQ's National Market tier, after Liberty Media traded most of its internet content, interactive television assets, and rights to provide AT&T's cable systems with interactive services, plus cash and notes valued at $150 million, for TCI Music stock. [6] Masters, who became Liberty Digital's CEO, told The Wall Street Journal that the new company had a value of $1 billion, $650 million of that from the interactive unit of Liberty Media, which had also used the name Liberty Digital. [7] Liberty Digital lost $244 million with revenue of $66 million in 1999, thanks to investments in struggling Internet businesses HomeGrocer, drugstore.com, TiVo Corporation, and iVillage. The company bought half of the Game Show Network because of its interactive features. [8]

On December 17, 1999, TCI Satellite Entertainment Inc. (TSAT), based in Englewood, Colorado, announced that Liberty Media was trading its interest in Sprint PCS for $300 million in TCI Satellite preferred stock. A new company, ninety percent owned by Liberty Media and ten percent owned by TCI Satellite, would combine the satellite-related businesses and take advantage of the growing area of Internet content. [9]

Spin-offs

In 2004, IAC/Interactive announced the spin-off of its travel site Expedia into the new company Expedia. Barry Diller remained the head of IAC/Interactive and the chairman of Expedia, [10] a move that was completed in 2005. [11]

In November 2007, IAC/InterActiveCorp, then valued at US$18 billion, announced four major spin-offs: HSN, Ticketmaster, Interval (vacation and time-share business) and LendingTree. All spun off companies became publicly-traded. IAC retained most of its emerging internet businesses: Ask.com, Evite, Match.com, Vimeo, Citysearch and Zwinky. All spun off units remained headed by Barry Diller. [12] [13]

In 2010, Liberty Media announced that it would spin off Liberty Starz and Liberty Capital and keep Liberty Interactive. [14] [15]

In October 2014, Liberty Interactive spun off BuySeasons and its stake in TripAdvisor into a new company, Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings. [16]

In 2015, Liberty Interactive announced it would spin off CommerceHub as a separate company and its interests in Expedia and Bodybuilding.com into a new company, Liberty Expedia Holdings. [17]

2010s sales and acquisitions

In July 2014, Liberty Interactive announced it would be selling Provide Commerce (parent of ProFlowers) to FTD in return for an equity stake in FTD. [18]

In October 2014, Liberty Interactive announced its board had approved the division of the firm into two trading stocks – one for its shopping business, QVC Group, and another for its digital commerce, Liberty Digital Commerce, which would trade as Liberty Ventures Group. [19]

In April 2017, Liberty Interactive announced it would acquire Alaskan cable company GCI. [20] On July 6, 2017, Liberty Interactive announced that it would purchase the remaining 62% of HSN stock that it didn't already own, in a $2.1 billion all-stock deal at $40.36 a share. [21] [22] [23]

In July 2017, Liberty Interactive announced that later that year it would spin off its "cable holdings and other non-retail assets" into the new company Liberty Ventures, with Liberty Interactive to be renamed QVC Group. QVC Group would consist of QVC, HSN, Cornerstone Brands, and Zulily. [24]

On March 1, 2018, Liberty Interactive Corporation announced that it would rename itself to Qurate Retail Group. [25] [26] [27]

In July 2021, Qurate Retail announced that former president and CEO Mike George would be replaced by David Rawlinson II on October 1 of the same year. [28] [29]

In May 2023, Qurate Retail Group's stock was facing a delisting from the Nasdaq if share prices are unable to rebound, as their stock has declined over 80% over the past year. [30] To avoid delisting, Qurate Retail announced the sale of Zulily to Regent, L.P. [31] In October 2023, CreditRiskMonitor reported that Qurate Retail Group was nearing a potential Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. [32]

Activities

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">QVC</span> American television network

QVC is an American free-to-air television network and a flagship shopping channel specializing in televised home shopping, owned by Qurate Retail Group. Founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel in West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States, QVC broadcasts to more than 350 million households in seven countries, including channels in the UK, Germany, Japan, and Italy, along with a joint venture in China with China National Radio called CNR Mall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nasdaq-100</span> Stock market index

The Nasdaq-100 (^NDX) is a stock market index made up of 101 equity securities issued by 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. It is a modified capitalization-weighted index. The stocks' weights in the index are based on their market capitalizations, with certain rules capping the influence of the largest components. It is limited to companies from a single exchange, and it does not have any financial companies. The financial companies are in a separate index, the Nasdaq Financial-100.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liberty Media</span> American mass media company

Liberty Media Corporation is an American mass media company founded by John C. Malone in 1991. The company has three divisions, reflecting its ownership stakes in Formula One, Sirius XM, and Live Nation Entertainment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HSN</span> American home shopping television network

HSN, an initialism of its former name Home Shopping Network, is an American free-to-air television network owned by the Qurate Retail Group, which also owns catalog company Cornerstone Brands. It is based in the Gateway area of St. Petersburg, Florida, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barry Diller</span> American businessman and media executive

Barry Charles Diller is an American businessman. He is Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and Expedia Group and founded the Fox Broadcasting Company and USA Broadcasting. Diller was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IAC Inc.</span> American media and internet company

IAC Inc. is an American holding company that owns brands across 100 countries, mostly in media and Internet. The company is incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and headquartered in New York City. Joey Levin, who previously led the company's search and applications segment, has served as chief executive officer since June 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tele-Communications Inc.</span> Defunct American cable television provider

Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) was a cable television provider in the United States, and for most of its history was controlled by Bob Magness and John Malone.

John Carl Malone is an American billionaire businessman, landowner, and philanthropist. He was chief executive officer (CEO) of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), a cable and media giant, for twenty-four years from 1973 to 1996. Malone is now chairman and largest voting shareholder of Liberty Media, Liberty Global, and Qurate Retail Group, and also owns 7% of Lionsgate and Starz Inc. He was interim CEO of Liberty Media, until succeeded by former Microsoft and Oracle CFO Greg Maffei.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Expedia Group</span> US online travel shopping company

Expedia Group, Inc. is an American travel technology company that owns and operates travel fare aggregators and travel metasearch engines, including Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Vrbo, Travelocity, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Ebookers, CheapTickets, CarRentals.com, Expedia Cruises, Wotif, and Trivago. Over 3 million lodging facilities and flights on over 500 airlines are bookable on the company's websites. It has 16,500 employees, and its headquarters are located in Seattle, Washington.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florists' Transworld Delivery</span> American Flower Delivery Corporation

FTD LLC (FTD), also known as Florists' Transworld Delivery, is a floral wire service, retailer, and wholesaler based in Downers Grove, Illinois, in the United States. FTD was founded as Florists' Telegraph Delivery in 1910, to help customers send flowers remotely on the same day by using florists in the FTD network who are near the intended recipient. It was based in Detroit, Michigan and then moved to Southfield, Michigan prior to its move to Downers Grove. It originated as a retailers' cooperative and began a process of demutualization in 1994. It operates two main businesses: The Consumer Business sells flowers and gift items through its websites and The Floral Business sells computer services, software and even fresh cut flowers to FTD and Interflora affiliated florists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bodybuilding.com</span> American dietary supplements company

Bodybuilding.com is an American online retailer based in Boise, Idaho, specializing in dietary supplements, sports supplements and bodybuilding supplements.

Shopping channels are a type of television program or specialty channel devoted to home shopping. Their formats typically feature live presentations and demonstrations of products, hosted by on-air presenters and other spokespeople who provide a sales pitch for the product. Viewers are also instructed on how they can order the product. Shopping channels may focus primarily on mainstream merchandise, or more specialized categories such as high-end fashion and jewelry. The term can also apply to channels whose programming consists exclusively of direct-response advertising and infomercials.

Prime Sports is the collective name for a former group of regional sports networks in the United States that were owned by Liberty Media, operating from November 1988 to October 31, 1996. While Liberty owned many of these networks, some of Prime's member networks were owned by other companies, and carried programming distributed for the group through affiliation agreements. As a result, Prime-affiliated networks had the right to select Prime Network programs to broadcast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ballard Designs</span>

Ballard Designs is an omnichannel retail company that designs and sells home furniture and accessories with a European influence. Formally part of Cornerstone Brands, a subsidiary of HSN Inc., the company is now one of the Qurate Retail portfolio brands, collectively owned by Qurate Retail Group. There are currently 15 retail stores: Three in Florida, Oak Brook, Illinois, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, Natick, Massachusetts, Atlanta, Georgia, Tysons Corner, Virginia, Garden City, New York, Charlotte, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, and four in Texas. There are also three outlet stores: one near its corporate headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, one near its distribution center in West Chester, Ohio, and a third in Louisville, Kentucky. The company's Margate, Florida outlet closed in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mindy Grossman</span> American businesswoman

Mindy Grossman is the former CEO of WW International. The Financial Times listed her in the Top 50 Women In World Business in 2010 and 2011, and she was ranked among Forbes' 100 Most Powerful Women In The World for the years 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2013. In 2014 she was ranked #22 in Fortune's Top People in Business.

Starz Inc. is an American entertainment company that owns and operates pay television channels, including the namesake Starz network, Starz Encore and MoviePlex, as well as a media distribution company. The company is headquartered at Meridian, Colorado, and uses nearby Englewood as its location in corporate filings and press releases. On December 8, 2016, it became a subsidiary of Lionsgate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zulily</span> American fashion company

Zulily, LLC was an American e-commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Its target audience was young mothers interested in brand-name goods for their children. It held no inventory, instead consolidating shipments of vendor-owned merchandise at its fulfillment centers, or drop shipping directly to customers. Zulily offered different discounts each day. In 2014, half of Zulily's orders came from mobile devices. Sales generally lasted 72 hours.

Synchrony Financial is a consumer financial services company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, United States. The company offers consumer financing products, including credit, promotional financing and loyalty programs, installment lending to industries, and FDIC-insured consumer savings products, through Synchrony Bank, its wholly owned online bank subsidiary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greg Maffei</span> American businessman (born 1960)

Greg Maffei is an American businessman. He is the president and chief executive officer of Liberty Media and the chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, Sirius XM and TripAdvisor. He is the chairman emeritus of Starz and Expedia, as well as the former chief financial officer of Oracle and Microsoft.

Darrell Cavens is an executive who was the co-founder and former CEO of the e-commerce company Zulily, which was acquired by QVC in 2015 for $2.6 billion.

References

  1. Website homepage shows this as of July 3, 2022.
  2. "Leadership".
  3. "Qurate Retail". Fortune. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
  4. "Qurate Retail Group". Google Finance.
  5. "Liberty Media Forms Interactive Venture (Press release)". PR Newswire . Archived from the original on 2007-10-17. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
  6. "TCI Music and Liberty Media Complete Transaction (Press release)". PR Newswire . Archived from the original on 2007-10-17. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
  7. "Liberty Media, TCI Form Internet Group – InternetNews". www.internetnews.com. Retrieved 2015-04-24.
  8. Doan, Amy (August 26, 2000). "Liberty Is Sweet on Interactive TV". Forbes . Retrieved March 5, 2009.
  9. "TCI Satellite Entertainment, Inc. Announces Investment By Liberty Media Corporation and Formation of Joint Venture (Press release)". PR Newswire . Archived from the original on 2011-08-31. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
  10. "Barry Diller's IAC/InterActive to Spin Off Expedia". FOX News. Reuters. 21 December 2004. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
  11. "IAC/InterActiveCorp (Nasdaq: IACI) today announced the successful completion of the spin-off of Expedia, Inc. to IAC shareholders". Viewfinder. 9 August 2005. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
  12. Gershberg, Michele (5 November 2007). "IAC to spin off four units, shares up". Reuters. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
  13. Fabrikant, Geraldine (6 November 2007). "IAC/InterActive to Split Into 5 Companies". New York Times. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
  14. Liberty Media Will Spin Off Liberty Capital and Liberty Starz
  15. company history – Liberty Media
  16. "Liberty Interactive files to spin off TripAdvisor stake". Reuters. 2014-05-06. Retrieved 2017-09-24.
  17. "Liberty Interactive to spin off CommerceHub, Liberty Expedia". Reuters. 2015-11-12. Retrieved 2017-09-24.
  18. FTD to buy Liberty Interactive's floral-gift business for $430M
  19. "Liberty Interactive splits into cable shopping, e-commerce groups" (Press release). Reuters. 6 October 2014.
  20. "Liberty Interactive Buys GCI of Alaska". Telecompetitor. Retrieved 2017-09-24.
  21. "QVC to Acquire Rival HSN for More Than $2 Billion". Wall Street Journal. 6 July 2017.
  22. "QVC buying longtime rival Home Shopping Network in deal valued at $2.1 billion". CNBC. 6 July 2017.
  23. Isidore, Chris (6 Jul 2017). "QVC buying rival Home Shopping Network". CNN Money. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
  24. Bond, Shannon; Kwan Yuk, Pan (July 6, 2017). "Liberty to combine QVC and HSN in $2.1bn deal". Financial Times . United Kingdom. Retrieved July 9, 2017.
  25. "Liberty Interactive to Change Name to Qurate Retail Group". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
  26. "QVC owner Liberty Interactive to rebrand as Qurate Retail Group". Retail Dive. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
  27. Spangler, Todd (2018-03-01). "John Malone's Liberty Interactive, Owner of QVC and HSN, to Rename Itself 'Qurate'". Variety. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
  28. "Qurate Retail, Inc. Announces David Rawlinson II as Next President and CEO". www.businesswire.com. 2021-07-13. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
  29. Kapner, Suzanne (2021-07-13). "Owner of QVC and HSN Hires David Rawlinson as Its Next CEO". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 2021-07-13.
  30. "QVC, HSN parent Qurate Retail Group faces delisting from Nasdaq is share price doesn't rebound". The Business Journals. May 3, 2023. Retrieved October 3, 2023.
  31. "Qurate Retail Announces Sale of Zulily to Regent". May 24, 2023. Retrieved May 24, 2023.
  32. "11 retailers at risk of bankruptcy in 2023". Retail Dive. October 2, 2023. Retrieved October 3, 2023.