The Bon-Ton Stores Inc. (BONTQ)

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By Sari Lesk – Reporter, Milwaukee Business Journal
a day ago
A judge signed off Monday on the sale of The Bon-Ton Stores Inc.’s intellectual property.

The department store chain, which had corporate offices in Milwaukee, closed the doors at its retail operations at the end of August after liquidating its merchandise. Great American Group, which conducted the going-out-of-business sales, said late last month that Bon-Ton's intellectual property was in the process of being sold.

Bankruptcy court filings reveal that CSC Generation, a technology platform, was the successful bidder to buy the defunct retailer’s intellectual property assets. The purchase includes the registrations to social media accounts and their content, along with customer data and databases. CSC would pay $900,000, according to the purchase agreement.

CSC is acting through its affiliate, The Bon-Ton Holdings Inc.

L’Oreal USA, meanwhile, agreed to purchase the customer and transactional data for Bon-Ton's beauty, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance customers. That purchase came with a price tag of $312,900, an agreement shows.

On Monday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath signed orders approving those sales.

According to court records, CSC is a “decentralized, multi-brand technology platform” that wants to give Bon-Ton's customers “renewed access to great brands at great prices” both online and at brick-and-mortar stores. The firm says it is experienced in retail as the operator of DirectBuy savings club.

An ombudsman’s report says CSC “claims to be saving companies from Amazon” and intends to do the same in this transaction.

CSC could not be reached immediately for comment on Monday about the development, nor its plans for the Bon-Ton brands moving forward.

L’Oreal sought the beauty portion of the data because Bon-Ton sold a broad range of its Lancome brand products online and in its stores, the report says.

“Due to store closings nationwide, a large pool of loyal Lancome customers will no longer have access to Lancome products, or other L’Oreal products, given where the stores were located,” according to the report. “For this and other reasons, L’Oreal is seeking to keep in constant contact with its loyal customers and also to expand its customer base to include Debtors’ beauty customers.”

Hilco Streambank was retained to oversee the sale of the intellectual property, the records show. The business received eight bids for the assets, four of which were deemed qualified ahead of a late July auction.

https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2018/09/10/judge-signs-orders-approving-sale-of-bon-tons.html