Zoo is wild for Geoffrey the giraffe
San Antonio institute seeks for rights to bankrupt retailer’s lovable mascot
With Toys R Us’s Geoffrey the giraffe facing possible extinction in the wake of the retailer’s closure, the San Antonio Zoo stepped up with a solution to save the bankrupt retailer’s mascot.
The zoo last month launched an online campaign in hopes of “adopting” Geoffrey from Toys R Us to use as the face for giraffe conservation. Only 100,000 giraffes remain in the wild, the zoo said.
The zoo started a GoFundMe page to raise $100,000 for the Giraffe Conservation Foundation and “to persuade the owners at Toys R Us to join the effort to save giraffes by donating the use of their most recognizable intellectual property.”
Alas, the zoo’s efforts to land Geoffrey the giraffe might be a stretch.
Given it’s mired in bankruptcy, Toy R Us isn’t in a position right now to simply give away the rights to Geoffrey for nothing.
Bankruptcy lawyers say the retailer has a duty to maximize the amount of money it can recover from selling assets so it can pay creditors. Those assets include its U.S. intellectual property, such as its name, its catchy, vintage TV jingle — “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid” — the Babies “R” Us brand, and Geoffrey.
Nobody with a financial stake in the bankruptcy — the debtor, a potential buyer or a lender with a lien on the intellectual property — is going to be particularly interested in saving giraffes, said Ray Battaglia, a San Antonio bankruptcy lawyer who is not involved in the case.
“This is all about money,” Battaglia said. “The court couldn’t care less about a zoo in San Antonio, Texas. My guess is there’s somebody who’s going to buy it, and they’re not going to parse it out.
“I hope they bag their giraffe, but I don’t think they will,” he said of the zoo.
Toys R Us, which filed for bankruptcy in September in Virginia and closed its remaining U.S. stores last month, is in the process of accepting bids for its intellectual property. It had set a July 2 deadline for what’s known as “stalking-horse bidders” — though in this case it should perhaps be stalking-giraffe bidders — essentially the first parties to make an offer at auc-
tion so other bidders would have to submit higher offers.
Whether anyone submitted an initial bid specifically for Geoffrey, or for most or all of the intellectual property rights, hasn’t been revealed in court filings.
“I can’t comment on anything related to that right now,” Joshua Altman, a Chicago bankruptcy lawyer representing Toys R Us, said last week.
Bidding for the intellectual property continues through July 30. An auction, if needed, will be held Aug. 6. The winning bidders for the intellectual property will be disclosed a couple of days later.
Besides the intellectual property, Toys R Us is auctioning more than 400 internet domain names, from toysrus.com to sextoysrus.com to toysrussucks.com
The zoo’s interest in acquiring Geoffrey has garnered significant media coverage, with reports by NPR, CNN.com and CBSNews.com, among a host of other outlets.
“Our team is passionate about securing a future for wildlife and would like to secure a future for Geoffrey so that he can be the symbol for giraffe conservation,” Tim Morrow, the San Antonio Zoological Society’s CEO and executive director, said in a statement announcing the zoo’s effort to “save a beloved children’s character.”
Wild populations of giraffes have dropped by 40 percent over the last three decades due to habitat loss, poaching and human extinction, the zoo said in the statement.
“Still no word back from the folks at Toys R Us,” said Chuck Cureau, the zoo’s director of public relations, when contacted last week.
Asked what the zoo has done to get the rights to Geoffrey, Cureau mentioned a “video plea” posted to its Facebook page and on YouTube, the GoFundMe page and the national media attention generated from its press release.
Just how much Geoffrey would cost to obtain is difficult to predict, Dallas bankruptcy lawyer John Penn said.
“Things that people think would have great value sometimes never find homes,” he said. “And sometimes the craziest things are bought. There’s definitely a market for retailers that have closed their operations.” Penn is not involved in the retailer’s bankruptcy.
Pets.com’s famous black-and-white spotted dog sock puppet mascot might serve as somewhat of a guide. When the company went under during the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s, California-based Hakan Enterprises Inc. bought the rights to the internet icon for $125,000, the Associated Press reported in 2002, and the sock puppet went on to become a “spokespuppet” for an auto loan company.
The zoo’s best hope for getting the rights to Geoffrey might be if no one bids during the bankruptcy auction, Penn said.
“If there are no buyers for Geoffrey, then (Toys R Us) can ask the bankruptcy court for permission to donate those rights to a worthy cause, which could include the zoo,” Penn said. But “they at least need to try to get some kind of value for it first.”