Word: mattel
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Pets don't have the benefit of a television show or movie providing free promotion for the brand. Nor do they have access to the cash that one of the big toy companies, like Mattel or Hasbro, can provide. The Zhu Zhu Pets are a small-business success story. The toys are made by Cepia, a seven-year-old St. Louis, Mo., company with only 16 employees. "It's fascinating, as you talk to executives from other toy companies," says Storch. "They are thumping themselves on the side of the head, wondering, 'How did I miss this...
Russell Hornsby, the founder of Cepia and a former Mattel employee, had long wanted to create a robotic pet for children. During a brainstorming session in May 2008, Hornsby and his fellow Cepia execs narrowed the choices down to three: a dog, a fish and a hamster. "Out of these, [a live] hamster is the one parents least like getting," says Natalie Hornsby, the company's marketing director, and Russell Hornsby's daughter. "So we figured a toy substitute would have some value." (See TIME's holiday gift guide...
...part of maturing is knowing when to shift from entrepreneurial mode, in which creativity and development trump all else, to business mode, in which adult supervision becomes mandatory. For Bossa Nova, that meant hiring a toy-industry gun, in the form of new CEO Martin Hitch, a veteran of Mattel and Hasbro. Penbo and Prime-8 were introduced in Europe this year, using local distributors. But the company, whose revenues are approaching $4 million, wants to crack the U.S. market and its big retailers. With the selling season for next year under way, Hitch will help Bossa Nova...
...Anyone who can pick a corporate pocket for $3.6 billion is a pretty cool customer, but there are many lingering questions about the business that O'Leary and Perik delivered to Mattel in return for that money. "It was an ugly mess," says Bernard Stolar, a software-industry veteran who was brought in by Mattel to take over the Learning Company from O'Leary and Perik. "There had been an awful lot of mismanagement at the company." (See the top 10 financial-crisis buzzwords...
...Shareholders sued Mattel over the Learning Company deal, naming O'Leary and Perik, along with other members of the toy company's management, as defendants. In the complaint, the shareholders alleged that under O'Leary and Perik the Learning Company used "accounting manipulations" to gain market share and drive up the company's stock price. According to the suit, a sales manager at the Learning Company at the time of the Mattel merger told employees that he "suspected the 'Learning Company is broke' and is 'cooking the books.' " Mattel paid shareholders $122 million to settle the suit. O'Leary...