FTD recently filed an S-3 with the SEC to describe the proposed sale of approximately 6.6 million shares by Leonard Green & Partners and executives and board members of FTD.
After announcing they were actively looking for a buyer in November, and failing to find an investor group willing to purchase FTD outright, the major shareholder and executive team are selling off a large portion of their holdings – at an expense of about $700K to be paid by FTD.
Readers will note that FTD’s executive team including Mike Soenen, Jon Burney, Larry Johnson, George Kanganis, and Bill VanCleave indicate intent to sell approximately 50% of their personally held shares.
Florists digging into the details of the S-3 note the sentence “It also allows our consumer businesses to process peak order flow substantially above that of our average daily order flow without any meaningful incremental investment in systems or infrastructure” as being possibly related to the infrastructure failure during Valentine’s Day that lost thousands and thousands of consumer and florist orders.
An article on Newsvine, Flowers Not So Rosy at FTD asks
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If everything is so rosey then, why is over $120 million of this company being sold by its leadership?
When the leadership group of FTD wants out, why would an investor want in?
Big changes coming, or just a chance to take a profit?
Good questions.
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As the fallout from Valentine’s Day 2007 continues and FTD Executives seemingly scramble to sell off their stock you must wonder what exactly is taking place in the floral industry !
FTD’s long range intent seems to be the phase out of the REAL FLORIST in favor of direct shipping methods which would destroy the very foundation of the florist industry.
I don’t know about you, but our customers want to deal with a Real Florist when they need to make a purchase.
FTD, Teleflora, 800, Pro Flowers and thousands more are not Real Florists. They are merely agents & brokers that make a whole lot of money off of you, the consumer, and us, the Real Florists that provide the services you really want, without the hidden charges.
If you really think that they have your best interests in mind all you have to do is continue placing orders through their services, then call the Real Florist that filled your order and ask only one simple question.
” How much did you receive from the Wire Service to fill my order ?”
A Real Florist will tell you the truth, and you’d better be sitting down, because what you paid is far more than we, as professional florists received.
You probably were not informed that their surcharge is not the delivery charge. They pocket the surcharge !
Then they probably didn’t tell you that the actual cost for florist delivery will be subtracted from your order, and of course they didn’t tell you that 1/3 more of your total order is theirs as well !
It doesn’t leave very much for the Real Florist now does it ?
Real Florists are working everyday to rebuild the confidence, you as the consumer once had in your local florist before you were misled into believing that the Wire Services and Order Gathrerers were your true florists.
Real Florists are winning the battle, slowly but surely, but cannot do it without the continued support and dedication of you the consumer.
Stand up against deception !
Cut out the middlemen
once and for all !
Deal direct with the people that have made this industry great for well over 100 years, and those people are your local Real Florists.
For more information and some very interesting reading please visit FloristDetective.com, a site dedicated to promoting the truth about the florist industry.
Kind of looks like the rats leaving a sinking ship?
Take the money and run?
Um… gimme a sec, I’ll think of a couple more.
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