Live Ventures Makes Offer on LL Flooring

New York, NY, October 12, 2023-Live Ventures Incorporated submitted a non-binding proposal to acquire flooring retailer LL Flooring Holdings, formerly Lumber Liquidators, for $5.85 per share in an all-cash transaction for a total of $180 million.

LL Flooring recently initiated a strategic alternatives process after rejecting a lower bid of $5.76 per share from its founder, Thomas Sullivan’s Cabinets To Go, which at the time represented a 35% percent premium to the stock’s closing price after the bid was made public.

Key points of the Live Ventures letter are as follows:

* A transaction between Live Ventures and LL Flooring would have many synergies given Live Ventures’ portfolio of flooring companies, which includes Marquis Industries, acquired in 2015 for $30 million; Flooring Liquidators, acquired in January 2023 for $84 million; and the brands formerly owned by QEP--Naturally Aged Flooring, Harris, Kraus and Heritage Wood--acquired in September 2023 for $10 million.

* The all-cash offer represents a significant 106% premium to LL’s stock price on October 6. The offer also represents a 94.4% premium over the 30-day VWAP share price and provides LL Flooring shareholders with certainty, full and fair value and immediate liquidity.

* Flooring represents 46% of total Live Venture’s 2022 revenue. A combined entity would be one of the largest flooring companies by revenue.

The company changed its name from LiveDeal to Live Ventures in 2015 and is traded on Nasdaq.

LL Flooring has 442 retail locations.