To sum up, then: A pioneering regional brick-and-mortar retailer acquires an American manufacturer. The manufacturing is subsequently offshored, and eventually the overall company, while still profitable, is sold for parts and morphed into a commercial landlord. The Vornado name lives on as a brand, under license, printed on mostly Chinese-manufactured fans (although they are designed and engineered, and in some cases assembled, in the United States). And then, the real-estate firm plays a part in the death of another struggling retailer in Toys ‘R’ Us—a company much in the same position as its own previous incarnation as Two Guys."Zombie" brands have always been of interest to me.
I recently had Amazon suggest that I might be interested in a "Minolta"-branded camera. I found this odd, since Konica-Minolta sold its whole camera business to Sony back in the early '00s.
Turns out the Minolta name is currently licensed by a company called "Elite Brands" in NYC which licenses the names of moribund companies like Bell + Howell (or even still-thriving ones like Coleman) here in the U.S. to slap on chintzy consumer electronica like cheap cameras and Bluetooth speakers.
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