ValueVision to change name to Evine Live

When chief executive Mark Bozek and the directors of Value­Vision Media Inc. took over after a lengthy proxy fight that ended in June, it was with the idea the ­company needed to develop proprietary brands if it wanted to elevate itself from a distant third place among home ­shopping networks.

They've decided that a new company name is key to jump-starting that process.

ValueVision Media, which operates the home shopping network ShopHQ, is changing its corporate name to Evine Live to reflect its transition into more of a comprehensive digital commerce company.

The Eden Prairie company announced the change Tuesday morning before a conference call with analysts to discuss its third quarter results. The name change takes effect immediately.

Its trading symbol — VVTV — will change to EVLV on Thursday. And the company expects to rebrand its shopping network and website, currently under the name of ShopHQ, to Evine Live in ­coming months.

"We believe that fully embracing this new transformation will enable Evine Live to forge new paths and new relationships that allow us to be far more competitive, far more creative, and far more disruptive on all our platforms," Bozek said in a prepared statement.

Evine Live also said it had hired Russell Nuce as the company's chief strategy officer. Bozek and Nuce co-founded Huntington Bay N.Y.-based merchandising and entertainment company Dollars Per Minute Inc. in 2011.

The Evine brand officially comes via the acquisition of assets from Dollars Per Minute in a stock deal valued at slightly more than $1 million.

Bozek and Nuce created Evine as an e-commerce site to develop and sell proprietary brands, but they lacked a large audience. Now, Evine will have access to the 87 million television homes that the ShopHQ network has built.

Mark Argento, an analyst with Lake Street Capital Markets, reiterated his "buy" rating on the company. "Accelerating the evolution of the platform and repositioning the brand is critical," Argento wrote in an investors note. "The change to Evine Live should give investors reason to wake up and pay attention."

It also may help distance the company from years of struggle. "We have to do something to change the negative perceptions of us," Bozek said in an interview.

Argento agrees, saying the ValueVision/ShopNBC/ShopHQ names had left a lot of confusion and negative associations with institutional investors over its last 15 to 20 years. "There is such a big consumer element and a brand element to this business," Argento said "You had to have a clean reset."

Along with making a name change, the company on Tuesday posted a $800,000 loss for the third quarter, or 1 cent per share. Adjusted earnings were better than analysts expected, however, and revenue was in line as the company drew more shoppers who ordered more often in the third quarter.

The company said sales rose 7 percent for the quarter to $157.1 million. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, was $4.8 million, up from the $3.6 million in the third quarter last year.

For the nine months ended Nov. 1, the company reported a net loss of $4.6 million, or 9 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $1 million, or 2 cents per share, for the same period a year ago. Year-to-date sales were up 6 percent over last year, to $473.4 million.

The company's shares closed at $5.92 Tuesday, up 34 cents, or 6.1 percent.

Kavita Kumar • 612-673-4113

Patrick Kennedy • 612-673-7926