Eden Prairie cable shopping retailer Evine Live Inc. on Wednesday will begin doing business under the new corporate banner of iMedia Brands Inc., and its shares will be traded under a new ticker of IMBI on a lower-tier marketplace composed of smaller public companies.
Television viewers will see the most obvious change, with the return of the name ShopHQ, which the company used between 2013 and 2015. Before that it was known as ShopNBC and ValueVision.
The rebranding coincides with the arrival of new Chief Executive Tim Peterman and a fresh infusion of $6 million in cash from the company's largest vendor, the Invicta Watch Group.
As part of the effort, hallways and meeting spaces at corporate headquarters are getting a fresh coat of paint.
But the company remains in the grip of a difficult turnaround, as Peterman and Invicta's Eyal Lalo try to return it to profitability. The retailer is in third place behind QVC and HSN in the home shopping market, and reported a worse-than-expected loss of $21 million, or 31 cents a share, in the first quarter.
Peterman, the company's former chief financial officer who was less than a month into the top job, responded by laying off 20% of Evine's workforce, including 11 C-suite executives.
The company's stock has been trading below $1 for so long that it was set to be delisted from Nasdaq's Global Market on Monday.
The name change and relisting buys the retailer another 180-day grace period from the Nasdaq, but it must hit the $1 required minimum for at least 10 consecutive business days during the next six months or face another delisting.
