Brookstone Puts Gardeners Eden Up for Sale

Two months after it agreed to be sold to a consortium of investors, cataloger/retailer Brookstone announced that it was putting its Gardeners Eden title up for sale. Selling gardening décor and accessories via catalog, the Web, and five stores, Gardeners Eden had sales of $16 million last year; it also had a pretax operating loss of $3.6 million.

“The divestiture of Gardeners Eden will allow Brookstone to dedicate all of its energy and resources to our core Brookstone business,” Brookstone chairman/president/CEO Michael Anthony said in a statement. In addition to its flagship brand, which sells high-tech gadgets and gifts, Brookstone also mails the Hard-to-Find Tools catalog.

On April 15, Brookstone signed a definitive agreement to be sold to OSIM International, J.W. Childs Associates, and Temasek Capital. It had acquired Gardeners Eden from Williams-Sonoma in 1999.