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Ben Kohn Hates Bunnies (part 1)
A hybrid report/opinion piece by Rick Gagliano | December 2023

What you're looking at is a full chart of PLBY Group (parent of (the former) Playboy magazine) since its SPAC IPO back in 2021. This is what Ben Kohn and his leadership team have wrought. At least they got the holiday color right. RED, deep, robust RED.

Editor's Note: Right from the start, I knew I was going to have trouble writing this article. I'll say from the outset, I can't stand the guy. I think he's a puke, a stuffed shirt, a fraud, who's got about as much business running a men's magazine (or what's left of it) as Taylor Swift performing brain surgery.

Compare the two main personalities in this drama: Huge Hefner, dynamic, risk-taker, entrepreneur, thought leader, womanizer, deceased. Ben Kohn, back-room wheedler, specializing in mergers and acquisitions, never created anything new in his life, serial jobs destroyer, business slaughterer, private equity slob, money-grubbing bitch. (I told you I couldn't be objective).

Somehow, Kohn managed to get onto Playboy's Board of Directors in March, 2011. I don't know what influence he had on operations. Nobody at PLBY Group will communicate with me in any way. His background in investment banking and private equity probably gave him cache to Playboy's inner circle. He admits that he couldn't make changes in how the Playboy business operated until Hefner passed away in 2017.

In the video clip below, Ben Kohn explains how valuable Playboy's brand is and how it drives $3 billion "spend" annually. Too bad PLBY Group isn't capturing much of that. The company's revenues are likely to drop to less than $150 million in 2023, thanks to Ben's leadership.

Ben goes on to say how his team has gone into the DNA of the brand and how they've done a very good job. So, I guess losing huge amounts of money quarter after quarter is a "good job." Sure, especially when you get paid nearly $2 million a year, you putz.

Sadly, Ben goes on to mention the Playboy clubs in Jamaica and around the world, and somehow Ben believes not publishing a magazine in print or even digital form since 2021 and not having a single Playboy club operating anywhere is somehow "bring that back to that aspirational lifestyle," whatever in the world that means.

None of this adds up. How is this guy still the CEO and on the board of directors? Maybe because his former boss and major shareholder is the Chairman of the Board?

...continued on Page 11

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