"Cup Cake Bubble" To Be Saved By MU Grad Marcus Lemonis?

[Tugg Speedman]

Marcus Lemonis is the "The Profit" on CNBC and CEO of Camping World and Good Sam Enterprises.  He also a 1995 Grad of MU

(explained here http://www.muscoop.com/index.php?topic=39528.0)

Crumbs is a very popular NYC bakery that specializes in cupcakes.  It rapidly grew from one store (in 2011) to almost 80 stores (2014) before they "hit the wall."  Wall Streeters are jokingly calling this the "cup cake bubble."

Merge these two stories together and you get ....


Crumbs Bake Shop nears lifeline from investor group

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101822961

An investor group that includes the Fischer Family and Marcus Lemonis, Chairman and CEO of Camping World and Good Sam Enterprises and star of CNBC's "The Profit," confirmed it plans to provide financing for the struggling cupcake chain as a prelude to an acquisition. (Lemonis will be on "Power Lunch" to discuss his plans at 1 p.m. ET.)

Following the news, the company's stock soared more than 950 percent from 3 cents to 35 cents.
Lemonis plans to incorporate other holdings, including Sweet Pete's Candy, into the new entity that contains Crumbs. Click here for the full Profit episode about Sweet Pete's.

On Monday, the gourmet bake shop closed all of its stores roughly one week after its shares were delisted from the Nasdaq stock exchange.

In a CNBC in-person interview in April, Crumbs CEO Ed Slezak placed part of the blame for the company's difficulty its flagship product, saying the cupcake is "too narrow of an assortment" and "too tight a niche to attract a sufficient number of people" daily.

Crumbs' rapid expansion coincided with a drop in cupcake demand. For the year ended in April, cupcake servings from retail shops fell 8 percent, according to market research firm The NPD Group.

After going public in 2011, Crumbs quickly expanded to 79 stores by early August with a sizable mall presence. Ahead of its delisting, the company had been aggressively closing underperforming stores and focusing on licensing efforts as it tried to turn around the business.