Playboy Agrees to Hugh Hefner's Buyout Offer

CHICAGO - The publisher of Playboy magazine has agreed to a sweetened offer by founder Hugh Hefner to take the company private.

The price of $6.15 a share is an 18 percent premium over Friday's closing price and values the company at about $207 million. The bid tops Hefner's offer of $5.50 per share in July.

A group led by Penthouse magazine has also made an offer for Playboy Enterprises Inc. valued at $210 million

But Hefner is Playboy's largest shareholder with about 70 percent of the company's voting shares and 28 percent of the nonvoting stock.

The company's namesake magazine has struggled with competition from the Web, losing readers and advertisers.

Hefner, 84, founded Playboy in 1953 and turned the publication and its scantily clad models into a cultural mainstay. But in recent years, the company has faltered as advertising revenue dwindled.

Hefner recently made news for his latest engagement - to Playmate Chrystal Harris

Hefner said in a Twitter message Dec. 26 that he'd given a ring to girlfriend and Playmate Crystal Harris, saying she burst into tears.

"This is the happiest Christmas weekend in memory," he wrote.

To clear up confusion over whether the ring was simply a Christmas gift, Hefner later tweeted: "Yes, the ring I gave Crystal is an engagement ring. I didn't mean to make a mystery out of it. A very merry Christmas to all."

This would be the third marriage for the 84-year-old, star of the E! cable TV reality series "The Girls Next Door," which chronicles Hefner's life at the Playboy Mansion. He divorced Playmate Kimberly Conrad last year.

Harris is 23, according to her online biography by E!