Odimo Incorporated, an online retailer, announced that Ice.com ("Ice"), an online retailer of diamonds and jewelry, has purchased from Odimo certain specified assets comprising Odimo's diamond and jewelry business, including all of Odimo's rights to the domain name www.diamond.com, and related trademarks, copyrights, product images and other intangibles in exchange for $7.5 million.
Additionally, Ice purchased the Company's remaining diamond and jewelry inventory and corporate packaging for an additional $2.0 million.
Separately, the Company indicated that Alan Lipton will step down as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, effective immediately. Mr. Lipton will remain as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company.
The Company appointed Jeff Kornblum, currently Chief Operating Officer, as its Chief Executive Officer and President. In addition, the Company noted that Rob Voss resigned as a member of the Company's Board of Directors.
Commenting on the announcements, Alan Lipton, Chairman, stated: "With the sale of diamond.com, we can now focus on capitalizing on the strengths and opportunities that exist for our worldofwatches.com and ashford.com brands -- both of which have the potential for solid growth at competitive gross margins.
The watch and luxury categories are also operations we believe can be run more efficiently due to their lower cost structure. As a result, we expect to benefit from a streamlined infrastructure and significantly lower costs."