N.Y. Fur Company to Sell Retail Unit to Seoul Firm

Fur Vault Inc., whose profits have been hit by an industry slump due largely to increasingly vocal animal-rights activists, said today it agreed to sell its retail fur unit to South Korea’s Jindo Corp. for as much as $15 million.

Jindo, a Seoul-based fur maker and retailer, said the deal is one of the largest U.S. acquisitions by a Korean company.

“We believe this acquisition is a very significant step toward enhancing our already strong U.S. presence in the fur business,” Young Kim, president of Jindo, said in a statement.

Fur Vault, based in New York, said Jindo agreed to pay $11 million to $15 million for the unit, depending upon a final asset valuation at the May closing of the deal. The pact is subject to government and shareholder approvals.

“The sale of the Retail Fur Group is consistent with the Fur Vault’s previously announced strategic plan. It will bring to an end successive operating losses of the Retail Fur Group . . . and will permit the company to concentrate its energies in more profitable areas,” Fur Vault President Robert Miller said in a statement.

Fur industry sales have been dented as increasingly visible animal-rights activists have taken their cause to the streets. Anti-fur activists, besides handing out pamphlets showing bloodied and cruelly captured animals as well as staging marches, have gathered in front of fur retailers’ operations in an effort to stop shoppers from buying furs.

Much of the activity has focused on New York--the fur capital of the world--where animal-rights groups have placed ads in newspapers and on radio, put up billboards and hung posters in subways.

Some militant groups have also harassed fur wearers and broken or spray-painted windows of fur stores.

But the industry has lashed back with its own ad campaign calling for the upholding of the right to wear fur in an attempt to save its $2 billion in annual sales.