PetSmart in April sold its State Line Tack equine assets to Pets United, a privately held multichannel merchant of pet and equine products. The sale includes the State Line Tack catalog, inventory, and customer lists.
Phoenix-based PetSmart had announced in February that it would exit the equine business, which represented just 2% of its $4.23 billion in sales last year. Along with a menagerie of Websites, which include Dog.com, Fish.com, and Horse.com, Pets United mails nearly 15 million copies annually of its three print catalogs: Country Supply, specializing in equine products; Dog.com; and Petstockroom, which sells bird supplies. Pets United will move the State Line Tack online and catalog business from Brockport, NY, to its Hazelton, PA, facility.
Fred Anderson, president of South Orange, NJ-based catalog intermediary Anderson Direct, who with Gruppo, Levy & Co. advised Pets United on the deal, notes that the acquisition will make Pets United “one of the preeminent equine suppliers.”