Bed Bath & Beyond has sold One Kings Lane, the online decor and furnishings marketplace it acquired in 2016. The spinoff was announced by CEO Mark Tritton on an earnings call last night, though he did not name a buyer or disclose a price.

The sale comes at a difficult time for Bed Bath & Beyond. Over the past five years, the company has struggled with a slumping stock price and underperforming stores. Late last year, just months after being appointed CEO, Tritton cleaned house, replacing much of the company’s senior management in one fell swoop.

Even prior to Tritton’s appointment, interim management at the company had announced a plan to close stores and scale back on the company’s operations; it’s possible that the spinoff of One Kings Lane was planned long ago. However, the impact of COVID-19 on the company’s balance sheet has certainly injected urgency into Bed Bath & Beyond’s plans to slim down—on the call, Tritton announced that April sales were down 42 percent compared to last year.

One Kings Lane, founded in 2009 by Susan Feldman and Alison Pincus as a flash sale site, has grown over the years into a full-fledged furniture and home accessories company with a mix of proprietary collections, collaborations and one-of-a-kind finds. Its approach has been to blend product from the world of high-end design (companies like Aero Studios, Visual Comfort, Aerin and Bunny Williams Home all sell through the site) with a distinctly editorial approach to merchandising. In recent years, the company had been taking steps to bulk up its physical retail presence, including the opening last year of a 3,500-square-foot showroom in Boston and a Manhattan store in SoHo in 2018.

In 2014, One Kings Lane raised funds on a valuation of $1 billion. Two years later, however, Bed Bath & Beyond acquired the company in a cash deal for an amount the retailer described as “non material.” At press time, Business of Home had not confirmed the buyer or the price for the recent sale.

Homepage image: Courtesy of One Kings Lane