GREENWICH, Conn., May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Blyth, Inc. (NYSE: BTH), a leading designer and marketer of candles, accessories for the home and wellness products sold through the direct selling and direct marketing channels, today announced the election of Jane A. Dietze to its Board of Directors.
Robert B. Goergen, Blyth's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said of Ms. Dietze's appointment, "Jane brings a strong technology background and financial management expertise to Blyth. We are very pleased to have her join us now as a significant percentage of our capital expenditures are being used for strategic technology investments in our direct-to-consumer businesses."
Ms. Dietze is Director of Private Equity and Bowdoin College's Investments Office. Prior to joining Bowdoin College she was a Managing Director at Fortress Investment Group, a global alternative investment and asset management firm. Before Fortress Investment Group, Ms. Dietze was a General Partner at Nextpoint Partners, an early-stage technology investment fund, where she was also Acting CEO of Secured Services, a publicly-traded software firm. She has been a General Partner at Columbia Capital, an IT and communications fund, and she was President, CEO and Co-Founder of TORSO, Inc., which is now owned by Oracle Corporation. Prior to that she served as Investment Officer, Europe Department at International Finance Corporation, a private investment arm of the World Bank. Ms. Dietze started her career as a financial analyst in mergers and acquisitions with Goldman, Sachs & Co.
During the course of her investment management career, Ms. Dietze has served as a board member or observer of Adjoined Consulting (now Capgemini), Approva, Netuitive, Pihana Pacific (now Equinix), RiverMine Software, Affinity Internet (now Hostway), Spaceworks (now Manugistics), Relera, Digital Paper (now ePlus) and Intersect. She is currently involved with Half the Sky Foundation, a non-profit organization nurturing China's orphaned children.
Blyth, Inc., headquartered in Greenwich, CT, USA, is a multi-channel company primarily focused on direct selling. We design and market home fragrance products and decorative accessories, as well as weight management products, nutritional supplements and energy drink mixes. These products are sold through the home party plan method of direct selling and through network marketing, respectively. The Company also designs and markets household convenience items and personalized gifts through the catalog/internet channel, as well as tabletop lighting and chafing fuel for the foodservice trade. The Company manufactures most of its candles and chafing fuel and sources nearly all of its other products. Its products are sold direct to the consumer under the PartyLite®, Two Sisters Gourmet® by PartyLite and ViSalus Sciences® brands, to consumers in the catalog/Internet channel under the As We Change®, Miles Kimball®, Exposures®, Walter Drake® and Easy Comforts®, and to the Foodservice industry under the Sterno®, Ambria® and HandyFuel® brands. In Europe, Blyth's products are also sold under the PartyLite brand.
Blyth, Inc. may be found on the Internet at www.blyth.com.
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance and underlying assumptions and other statements that are other than statements of historical facts. Actual results could differ materially due to various factors, including the slowing of the United States or European economies or retail environments, the risk that we will be unable to maintain our historic growth rate, our ability to respond appropriately to changes in product demand, the risk that we will be unable to integrate the businesses that we acquire into our existing operations, the risks (including foreign currency fluctuations, economic and political instability, transportation delays, difficulty in maintaining quality control, trade and foreign tax laws and others) associated with international sales and foreign sourced products, risks associated with our ability to recruit new independent sales consultants, our dependence on key corporate management personnel, risks associated with the sourcing of raw materials for our products, competition in terms of price and new product introductions, risks associated with our information technology systems (including, susceptibility to outages due to fire, floods, power loss, telecommunications failures, computer viruses, break-ins and similar events) and other factors described in this press release and in the Company's most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K.
SOURCE Blyth, Inc.
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