Hasta La Ideas

After a drawn-out sale of its assets in bankruptcy court, and a glimmer of hope for a turnaround at the hands of private equity firm Patriarch Partners, Polaroid is now officially in the hands of Gordon Brothers Brands and Hilco Consumer Capital, whose other portfolio brands include recent retail-sector casualties The Sharper Image and Linens n’ Things. For $88 million, the liquidation firms acquired the Polaroid brand, along with the company’s intellectual property and inventory. Now it’s onto what Scott Hardy, Polaroid’s newly named president, describes as a “full-scale global licensing and distribution strategy for wholesale, direct-to-retail, and e-commerce businesses.” We’re not exactly sure what that means, but we hope it doesn’t end, à la Pierre Cardin, in Polaroid-brand duty-free cigarettes and tears. In a statement announcing the deal closing, the new owners were enthusiastic about the potential to slap the Polaroid name on everything from digital photo frames to portable DVD players. They also noted their plan to maintain Polaroid’s Minnesota headquarters along with the majority of its Minnesota-based employees.

(Photo: Ritchard Ton. See more of his work on Flickr.)

Previously on UnBeige: