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(Rapaport...May 11, 2006) Online diamond and jewelry retailer ice.com, purchased the domain name diamond.com for $7.5 million from Odimo Inc. Ice.com will continue to operate the diamond.com brand, and the company said it agreed to buy diamond.com after securing new financing from Ignition Partners. Ice.com paid an additional $2 million for inventory.
The agreement between the two now prohibits Odimo from engaging in online retail sales of jewelry and diamonds, but Odimo will continue to sell watches and luxury goods.
This domain purchase "is another step in providing jewelry customers with the very best online shopping experience," said Pinny Gniwisch, ice.com's executive vice president of marketing.
"Jewelry makes people feel special. We are in this business because we believe that both men and women deserve to have many purchasing options, whether buying for an important event or for feeling great about their style. We will continue to generate new and innovative ideas in order to better serve our customers."
Matthew Kratter, a banker at Cascadia Capital, advised ice.com on the acquisition transaction.
Meanwhile, Odimo, which recently stated that it required additional capital for continuing operations, announced some changes at the executive level.
Alan Lipton has stepped down as president and CEO, but will remain as chairman of the board. Jeff Kornblum takes the reigns as president and CEO. Rob Voss resigned as a member of Odimo's board of directors.
"With the sale of diamond.com, we can now focus capitalizing on the strengths and opportunities that exist for our worldofwatches.com and ashford.com brands," Lipton said.
"The watch and luxury categories are also operations we believe can be run more efficiently due to their lower cost structure. As a result, we expect to benefit from a streamlined infrastructure and significantly lower costs," Lipton said.
Kornblum said, "It is a great opportunity to lead Odimo in this new phase of our development.
"The sale of the jewelry and diamond segment of our business will enable us to bring greater focus to our company and dramatically reduce our cost structure," Kornblum said. "I welcome the chance to develop this potential and look forward to working with Alan, the board and our Odimo team to take us to a new, exciting level."
Ice.com paid $9 million at the closing sale and delivered an additional $500,000 in escrow to be held as security for the company's indemnification and other obligations.
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