News broke today that Toys”R”Us, Inc. has acquired the KB Toys brand, which includes its URL, KBToys.com, its trademarks and other intellectual property rights.
Founded in 1922, KB Toys was once well known as the largest mall-based toy retailer in the United States, but went bankrupted in February 2009.
“This is an exciting development for our company, and we will be working to determine the role KB Toys will play in our growing portfolio of family-friendly brands over the long term,” states a press release. “In the interim, visitors to KBToys.com will be invited to shop Toys.com, where they will find exclusive savings and daily deals offered by our other e-commerce sites.”
The release further explains, “This acquisition is another example of how we are Playing to Win by aggressively pursuing opportunities to advance our specialist position in the toy and baby products industries – reinforcing our status as The World’s Greatest Kids’ Brand. Together, with our recent acquisitions of FAO Schwarz and eToys.com, the “R”Us family of brands is well-positioned to be a strong competitor and capture more toy-buying dollars in the months and years ahead.”
Honestly, I was kind of hoping KB Toys would return on its own. Knowing that they are now owned by Toy”R”Us is kind of defeating as it creates more of a toy monopoly. I guess it could have been worse, Walmart could have acquired the KB Toys brand…