Gsi Commerce

Michael Rubin's mom didn't like the idea of her 12-year-old son starting a ski shop, so he did what most savvy kids do - played his parents against each other. "I went to my father, who said he would be supportive as long as I did well in school," Rubin said in a 2008 interview. Wonder what the family is thinking now that Rubin, 37, a Villanova University dropout, stands to earn a cool $126.1 million when eBay Inc. closes its $2.4 billion deal for GSI Commerce Inc. That's the King of Prussia company Rubin grew from his ski-store business.

King of Prussia-based GSI Commerce Inc., which runs websites for retailers such as Toys R Us and Bath & Body Works, said Monday that the 40-day period in which it could seek third-party offers to eBay Inc.'s $2.4 billion bid has ended. EBay, which runs its namesake site where users buy and sell items through auctions and fixed-price "Buy it Now" formats as well as online payments service PayPal, announced its acquisition offer in March. GSI said it did not receive any alternative proposals before the "go-shop" period ended on Friday.

GSI Commerce Inc., King of Prussia, said Wednesday it acquired VendorNet, a Boynton Beach, Fla., provider of software to manage e-commerce supply-chain solutions, such as inventory management. VendorNet's clients include the Franklin Mint, Neiman Marcus, David's Bridal, Spiegel, Nine West and Lands' End. The purchase price was not disclosed, but privately held VendorNet has 32 employees, a GSI Commerce spokeswoman said. GSI operates websites for retailers, manufacturers and other companies.

GSI Commerce Inc., King of Prussia, said it authorized a repurchase of up to $50 million of its outstanding shares over the next two years. The buyback extends through March 14, 2013, and was contingent on the completion of GSI's acquisition of Fanatics Inc. That deal - with terms that were not disclosed - has closed, GSI said. Fanatics operates more than 250 e-commerce websites. GSI also said it has closed a $400 million credit agreement. The five-year agreement replaces a $150 million revolving credit facility and includes a $285 million revolving line of credit and a $115 million term loan.

Web retailer GSI Commerce Inc. said yesterday that it had acquired a Massachusetts firm in a $157 million deal that gives the King of Prussia company a foothold in e-mail-based marketing. The acquired company, privately held e-Dialog Inc., of Lexington, Mass., had revenue of about $34 million for the 12 months ended Sept. 30. GSI said yesterday that it expected its own 2007 revenue to be in the range of $748 million to $750 million. "The acquisition will significantly expand the breadth and depth of GSI's interactive-marketing-services capabilities," GSI said in a statement.

For the second time in a decade, Michael G. Rubin is selling the business he heads - and keeping some of it, too. Online-auction manager eBay has big plans for its latest proposed Philadelphia-area acquisition, GSI Commerce , which employs approximately 1,000 workers at its King of Prussia headquarters and thousands more at warehouses across North America. But Rubin isn't just selling his company, the publicly traded GSI. He's also buying back the parts he wants, with eBay's blessing, plus eBay financing for further expansion.

Five Below Inc., the Center City-based chain of 192 kid-oriented dollar stores in 16 Eastern and Midwestern states, has hired Goldman Sachs and other brokers to lure investors for a $150 million initial public stock offering. The chain, founded in 2003 by former Zany Brainy toy-store owners David Schlessinger and Tom Vellios, has grown quickly, especially since investors led by Advent International Corp. of Boston pumped in $194 million in 2010. Five Below more than doubled its sales of cheap sports gear, snacks, party goods, and other middle-school accessories to $297 million in the year ended Jan. 11, from $125 million two years earlier, according to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

GSI Commerce Inc., a provider of Internet marketing services to apparel firms, hardware stores, sports teams and sporting-goods concerns, said it had bought a four-story King of Prussia building that would be its corporate headquarters. The 104,000-square-foot structure, purchased for $17 million, at 935 First Ave., will house 400 GSI employees, including executive, financial, engineering, technical, creative design, marketing and sales personnel. It will be nearly double the size of the headquarters it replaces at 1075 First Ave. "We have people piled up on top of each other now," said Greg Ryan, GSI corporate communications director.

As Amazon.com killed Borders, crippled Best Buy, and started trimming even Walmart, at least the online retail giant was also hiring thousands of low-wage workers and contract laborers for the warehouses it has been raising in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and a few other states. But Amazon's announcement Monday that it was buying industrial robot-maker Kiva Systems Inc. for $775 million could leave you wondering if retail was going to be completely taken over by machines. Pennsylvania - America's warehouse - is home to one of Amazon's "order fulfillment" clusters, with five locations in the Allentown-to-Carlisle corridor on the Interstate freeways that bypass I-95 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

The Center for Autism , a nonprofit autism treatment and evaluation center, has named Silvana Battaglia , John C. Bickel , and Margaret C. Souders to its board of directors. Battaglia is senior vice president of human resources for Day & Zimmerman Group Inc. Bickel is the president of Hollister Construction Services' Pennsylvania office. Souders is on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing and has a clinical appointment as a pediatric nurse practitioner for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Clinical Genetics Center and Center for Autism Research.

In the Region Philadelphia lawyers stay put   Drinker Biddle & Reath L.L.P. said it agreed to extend its lease at One Logan Square through 2029. As part of the agreement, the law firm will reduce the size of its offices from 206,000 square feet to 155,000 square feet. The firm anticipates that the number of employees there will remain about the same. It has 456 employees at One Logan, including 205 lawyers. - Chris Mondics   Deal to ship ethane via Marcus Hook   A European petrochemical producer entered into a 15-year agreement to ship Marcellus Shale ethane to Norway from a Sunoco Logistics terminal in Marcus Hook.

Harleysville Group Inc. shareholders voted to accept $60 a share to sell the company to Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., chief executive Michael L. Browne said in a statement Wednesday. That price is a lot fatter than the stock's previous high, in the mid-$30s. Half a dozen policyholders, who sued to change the terms, say some cash should go to the company's nominal owners, policyholders of affiliated Harleysville Mutual Insurance Co., as happened in previous mutual sales like Nationwide's purchase of the former Provident Mutual Life Insurance Co., Berwyn, 10 years ago (also after a court fight)

Five Below Inc., the Center City-based chain of 192 kid-oriented dollar stores in 16 Eastern and Midwestern states, has hired Goldman Sachs and other brokers to lure investors for a $150 million initial public stock offering. The chain, founded in 2003 by former Zany Brainy toy-store owners David Schlessinger and Tom Vellios, has grown quickly, especially since investors led by Advent International Corp. of Boston pumped in $194 million in 2010. Five Below more than doubled its sales of cheap sports gear, snacks, party goods, and other middle-school accessories to $297 million in the year ended Jan. 11, from $125 million two years earlier, according to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As Amazon.com killed Borders, crippled Best Buy, and started trimming even Walmart, at least the online retail giant was also hiring thousands of low-wage workers and contract laborers for the warehouses it has been raising in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and a few other states. But Amazon's announcement Monday that it was buying industrial robot-maker Kiva Systems Inc. for $775 million could leave you wondering if retail was going to be completely taken over by machines. Pennsylvania - America's warehouse - is home to one of Amazon's "order fulfillment" clusters, with five locations in the Allentown-to-Carlisle corridor on the Interstate freeways that bypass I-95 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Alphabuyer Inc., a year-old Paoli e-commerce company that enlists customers for "group buying for your bills," probably could have picked something a little sexier to start with than the humble electric bill. But since launching last year with discount offers for Peco Energy Co. electricity customers, the group-buying service has expanded into three other states, including New Jersey, and other commodities, such as natural gas. Cofounder Kevin Johnson imagines that eventually every savvy, penny-pinching customer will go through Alphabuyer to join groups to buy products and services ranging from discounted Internet and cellphone service to gasoline, heating oil, or antivirus-software subscriptions.

In this punk U.S. economy, familiar places keep vanishing. Our neighborhood Borders , one of my cable-TV-deprived kids' favorite hangouts, shuts this week. The old Circuit City across the road, where we got our first mobile phones and our first factory-boxed PC, is empty again, after another electronics chain found that it couldn't make money there, either. Let 'em go, said Michael G. Rubin , who last spring sold the online-retail contractor and warehouse company he built and ran, King of Prussia-based GSI Commerce Inc., to eBay Inc. for $2.5 billion.

King of Prussia-based GSI Commerce Inc., which runs websites for retailers such as Toys R Us and Bath & Body Works, said Monday that the 40-day period in which it could seek third-party offers to eBay Inc.'s $2.4 billion bid has ended. EBay, which runs its namesake site where users buy and sell items through auctions and fixed-price "Buy it Now" formats as well as online payments service PayPal, announced its acquisition offer in March. GSI said it did not receive any alternative proposals before the "go-shop" period ended on Friday.

For the second time in a decade, Michael G. Rubin is selling the business he heads - and keeping some of it, too. Online-auction manager eBay has big plans for its latest proposed Philadelphia-area acquisition, GSI Commerce , which employs approximately 1,000 workers at its King of Prussia headquarters and thousands more at warehouses across North America. But Rubin isn't just selling his company, the publicly traded GSI. He's also buying back the parts he wants, with eBay's blessing, plus eBay financing for further expansion.