GREENWICH, Conn., May 2, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Blyth, Inc. (NYSE:BTH), a leading multi-channel designer and marketer of home fragrance products, home decor products and household convenience items, today announced that is has sold certain assets associated with its North American mass channel home fragrance business, Blyth HomeScents International - North America (BHI) to MVP, Inc., a designer, manufacturer, and marketer of private label candles and home fragrance products to mass retailers.
Included in the sale are assets including the Memphis, Tennessee distribution facility and Bentonville, Arkansas operations. Blyth will retain all other offices, facilities, assets and employees associated with its wholesale candle manufacturing and distribution. The Company continues to manufacture and market Colonial Candles through its premium Midwest business.
Robert B. Goergen, Blyth's Chairman of the Board and CEO, commented, "BHI is a leader in mass market home fragrance products, maintaining a strong relationship with Wal-Mart as the 'category advisor' for its candles and with a leading position in potpourri, as well as a solid relationship with other major food, drug and mass retailers across the country. A strong management team has made significant progress restructuring BHI in recent years, rationalizing product line sizes and reducing overhead expenses."
Mr. Goergen continued, "Our mass retailer candle business was the original base from which we built our leadership in home fragrance. Nevertheless, with our current and future focus on the Direct-to-Consumer and premium Wholesale channels, as well as the Sterno business, BHI has become less of a strategic fit for Blyth going forward. Thus, when conversations arose with a strong and growing competitor interested in increasing its mass retailer presence, we were receptive to a dialog."
Management will update its full year, fiscal 2008 guidance to reflect the BHI divestiture in its first quarter earnings announcement, which is expected to be released on May 31, 2007.
Blyth, Inc., headquartered in Greenwich, CT, USA, is a Home Expressions company that markets an extensive array of home fragrance products, decorative accessories, seasonal decorations and household convenience items. The Company sells its products through multiple channels of distribution, including the home party plan method of direct selling, as well as through the wholesale and catalog/Internet channels. Blyth also markets tabletop lighting and chafing fuel for the Away From Home or foodservice trade. The Company manufactures most of its candles and chafing fuel and sources nearly all of its other products. Its products are sold direct to the consumer under the PartyLite(r) and Two Sisters Gourmet(tm) brands, to retailers in the premium and specialty retail channels under the Colonial Candle(tm), Carolina(r), CBK(r) and Seasons of Cannon Falls(r) brands, to retailers in the mass retail channel under the Florasense(r), Ambria(r), FilterMate(r) and Sterno(r) brands, to consumers in the catalog and Internet channel under the Miles Kimball(r), Exposures(r), Walter Drake(r), The Home Marketplace(r), Easy Comforts(tm) and Boca Java(tm) brands, and to the Foodservice industry under the Sterno(r), Ambria(r) and HandyFuel(r) brands. In Europe, Blyth's products are also sold under the PartyLite(r) brand.
Blyth, Inc. may be found on the Internet at www.blyth.com.
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance and underlying assumptions and other statements that are other than statements of historical facts. Actual results could differ materially due to various factors, including the slowing of the United States or European economies or retail environments, the risk that we will be unable to maintain our historic growth rate, our ability to respond appropriately to changes in product demand, the risk that we will be unable to integrate the businesses that we acquire into our existing operations, the risks (including foreign currency fluctuations, economic and political instability, transportation delays, difficulty in maintaining quality control, trade and foreign tax laws and others) associated with international sales and foreign sourced products, risks associated with our ability to recruit new independent sales consultants, our dependence on key corporate management personnel, risks associated with the sourcing of raw materials for our products, competition in terms of price and new product introductions, risks associated with our information technology systems (including, susceptibility to outages due to fire, floods, power loss, telecommunications failures, computer viruses, break-ins and similar events), risks associated with legislation proposed by the Federal Trade Commission and other factors described in this press release and in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2007.