Say so-long to the Sock Puppet. Pets.com Inc., the high-profile online pet products retailer, Tuesday announced it will hold a special stockholders meeting on Jan. 16 to ratify the company’s plan for complete liquidation and dissolution.
Stockholders will also vote on changing the company’s name to IPET Holdings Inc.
The company said it has already filed a final proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and stockholders of record as of Dec. 13, 2000 will be entitled to vote at the meeting.
The company called it quits on Nov. 7 after failing to secure funding. Pets.com was trading at about 12 cents per share mid-morning Tuesday off a 52-week high of $14. It had been aggressively seeking capital since early summer. It then attempted to secure an outright buyer, hiring Merrill Lynch to assist it. Merrill Lynch contacted more than 50 international and domestic prospects, but fewer than eight were even willing to visit Pets.com, even though it was desperately attempting to reduce operating expenses and maximize efficiency.
If shareholders approve the company’s plan on Jan. 16, it will put the majority of its assets on the auction block, including inventory, distribution center equipment, URLs, content and its Sock Puppet brand icon as well as other intellectual property.