Buy.com cozies up to private equity

I live fairly close to Buy.com's headquarters. Back in the internet heyday, the company went public and raised gobs of money. But when the dot-com nuclear winter hit, the stock cratered. The founder of the company, Scott Blum, bought it for peanuts.

Since then, Buy.com has tried to go public – but there's been much resistance. Why? First of all, the company's business model is not really sexy anymore (don't most major retailers have ecommerce sites?). Oh, and the company has struggled to achieve profitability.

Well, things are starting to change. According to a recent press release, Buy.com was able to churn out an $8.8 million net profit on net sales of $162 million (for Q4). Even in the slow Q1, the company posted net income of $722,000.

For the past year, Buy.com has had a filing with the SEC to go public. But, that has been withdrawn.

Actually, the company was able to snag a private equity investor -- Clearlake Capital Group – that bought a 9% stake.

Having such a backer should be a big help. The company is likely to undergo some changes and get more streamlined.

It may not necessarily result in another IPO – but Buy.com could ultimately be a fit for bigger ecommerce players like Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) or even traditional retailers.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.