Burlington Stores Inc. NYSE: BURL (formally known as Burlington Coat Factory) has acquired Burlington.com
It appears the domain was owned by Platinum Equity, which acquired International Textile Group (ITG) in 2016. Burlington.com held the domain name itg-global.com as the registrant email address in whois records until late 2017 prior to moving to whois privacy. The itg-global.com domain is displayed on Platinum Equity’s ITG page. Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse then appears in whois records on February 12, 2018 for Burlington.com.
It appears around May 2018 is when Burlington Coat Factory switched to Burlington.com from BurlingtonCoatFactory.com.
Burlington Industries had long owned the Burlington.com domain name but that company filed for bankruptcy in 2001. WL Ross & Co. acquired Burlington Industries out of bankruptcy in 2003. By 2004 Wilbur Ross created International Textile Group, which combined Burlington Industries and Cone Mills.
ITG heavily protected the Burlington trademark, which caused conflicts with Burlington Coat Factory as noted on the Burlington Industries Wikipedia page.
Burlington Coat Factory dropped “coat factory” from its branding and brands simply as Burlington now, so the domain name is the perfect fit.
ITG still uses “Burlington” brand names like Burlington Labs and uses BurlingtonFabrics.com to promote its textiles. It also states that it licensed the Burlington brand name to a company in Germany for a European menswear brand but later in the article, states that they sold certain trademark rights to FALKE, the European fashion brand.
My point about the above data is, ITG has invested a lot of time, effort and money into protecting and promoting the Burlington brand name, so selling Burlington.com likely wouldn’t come at a cheap price.
I had SEC filing expert George Kirikos dig Burlington’s latest SEC filing but that search came up empty to reveal the domain name purchase price. I also contacted Burlington’s investor relations and asked about the Burlington.com domain name purchase but I have yet to hear back from them. I also reached out to Platinum Equity for comment on the sale of the domain name, but I have not heard back from them either.
I would expect this domain name sale to have been a substantial one.
The brand adjustment and removal of the restrictive branding with “coat factory” was a wise move. Burlington offers much more than coats, so this branding move makes a lot of sense, as important was acquiring the exact match brand domain name Burlington.com!
Smart buy by Burlington Stores.