HSN Inc. ended its time as a stand-alone public company with a continued slump in sales.
An earnings report from the new parent company of the St. Petersburg multichannel retailer detailed the declining financial status of HSN in its last few months of independence.
HSN is now part of Liberty Interactive Corp.’s QVC Group, which is rebranding as Qurate Retail Group Inc., and includes HSN, a video commerce business; Cornerstone Brands, an interactive lifestyle retail business; QVC and zulily. Liberty Interactive will begin using this new name once the company completes the split-off of GCI Liberty (formerly General Communication), as the Philadelphia Business Journal reported.
Liberty acquired the 62 percent of HSN it did not already own in a deal that closed Dec. 29. The total equity value of the transaction was $1.9 billion, including Liberty’s $605 million ownership interest previously held in HSN, the earnings report said. That was down from the equity value of $2.1 billion when the deal initially was announced on July 6.
Revenue for both HSN and Cornerstone dipped in the fourth quarter of 2017 as well as for the full year.
For HSN, revenue for 2017 was $2.3 billion, down 5 percent from the previous year, while Cornerstone posted 2017 revenue of $1.045 billion, down 5 percent from 2016.
Operating income for HSN for 2017 was $103 million, down 52 percent from 2016, while Cornerstone had operating income of $8 million in 2017, up 214 percent from 2016.
Read the full earnings report here.
Mike George, CEO of QVC, blamed the financial decline on distractions associated with the pending acquisition.
“We’ll focus on building the business fundamentals,” he said during a conference call with analysts.
By Margie Manning Finance Editor, Tampa Bay Business Journal