Front Porch to Merge with Sababa
By Staff -- Gifts and Dec, 1/17/2007 10:55:00 AM
New York — Seattle-based game company Front Porch Classics will merge with toy and game manufacturer Sababa Toys, and operate under the Sababa name. Each will remain a distinct brand within the parent company, headquartered in New York.
Front Porch Classics’ nostalgic games, designed to be played and displayed in the home, sell at booksellers, gift specialty stores and catalog specialty stores. Sababa, on the other hand, is known for selling licensed toys and games into the mass market and specialty toy channels.
Bob Wann of Sababa Toys will serve as CEO for the combined company, while Sababa’s Stone Newman will continue as president. Sababa’s Ron Hayes will head product design and development, while Sababa’s Arthur Levine will be CFO, and Sababa’s Richard Gill will head the international division. Helen Rockey, CEO of Front Porch, will become vice chairman of Sababa, and Erika Cottrell, Front Porch vice president, will become president of the Front Porch Classics brand in the combined company.
While the details of the combined company’s operations are still being ironed out, Front Porch Classics marketing coordinator Steven Hart told Gifts & Decorative Accessories that it was his impression that Front Porch retailers don’t need to worry that the same products they carry will be sold into big box competitors. Rather, the company “might want to do some Sababa adaptations of some popular Front Porch games and vice versa.”
“We plan on offering different surrounds or different contexts to try to alleviate some of the concerns regarding competition, especially specialty gift toy and big box,” added Hart. For example, Front Porch could “potentially adapt Dragonology to a coffee table game with all wood and natural materials. That’s a property we look at and drool over,” said Hart, “but all of that is yet to be determined.”
Retailers also needn’t worry that Front Porch will leave the gift channel itself. “We still plan on going to the gift shows,” said Hart. The only difference? “There’s probably going to be some Sababa items that are going to make it to those shows now,” Hart said.
Jill Bazos, vice president of marketing for Sababa, concurred. “This will absolutely open up additional distribution opportunities for both companies. That was a big, exciting part of this deal. It opens up our choices. I can’t be specific because we don’t know until we sit down and really work through all of it.”
“We’re doing this because we love Front Porch for what they are," she added. "We have no intention of making them something they’re not.”
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