Brand specialists claim the sale could be one of the most valuable brands ever sold by a company going out of business.
Reuters has reported that, according to court records, the company is selling its intellectual property, which includes the Toys R Us name, Geoffrey the Giraffe logo and the Babies R Us brand, as part of efforts to raise money to repay creditors.
This is a departure from previous implications that the Toys R Us name was not on the table as part of the liquidation process.
The company also owns hundreds of website addresses, including many related domain names such as recipes-r-us.com, burgers-r-us.com, cigars-r-us.com and even sex-toys-r-us.com.
Bob Phibbs, a brand specialist and chief executive of Retail Doctor, explained that companies often register related domain names to guard against the hijacking of their brand by other businesses, which means that domains such as ihatetoysrus.com and toysrussucks.com are also up for offer. None of the domain names is currently active.
Bob said the long list of domain names owned by the company reveals the allure of the Toys R Us brand.
“It shows the power of the brand,” he commented.
Toys R Us had not responded to a request for comment by Reuters at the time of writing.