Video King founder buys back 13 stores

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Dec 01, 2006 by Erbstoesser, Greg

VESTAL - Lawrence Wilson, the man who built the Video King video-rental store empire across upstate New York in the early 1980s and 1990s - only to sell them twice over the years - has repurchased 13 Video King stores.

And Wilson plans to add a new, admittedly strange twist to his video-rental business: tanning beds.

"I thought it was crazy, too," he says, after a store employee suggested the tanning-bed side-business. "But it works well."

Wilson says he bought back 13 of 27 Video King stores he had sold to privately held, Bloomington, Minn.-based Movie Brands, Inc. in 2002. Wilson took over formal ownership Oct. 31 under the name Video King Enterprises of New York, LLC. He and his wife, Kellie, own the limited-liability company, with headquarters located at 231 Main St. in Vestal.

Wilson's newly acquired Video King stores are in Ogdensburg, Masseria, Potsdam, Ticonderoga, Norwich, Owego, and Horseheads, as well as six stores in Broome County. However, Wilson says he closed one store in the West Comers neighborhood in the town of Union Nov. 13, because he lost the lease. Wilson is steering customers to his store in Endicott.

The reason he repurchased the Video King stores is simple: They were available, he says. But, more important, Wilson is quick to point out: "I love the video business. I know how to run the business."

Wilson says he was in negotiations with Movie Brands officials for a year before an agreement was reached.

Wilson neither revealed the purchase price nor sales figures for his video-rental stores.

He already owns six Video King stores in Pennsylvania in Mansfield, Montrose, Susquehanna, Towanda, Troy, and Wellsboro. Overall, he employs several hundred fulland part-time employees, Wilson says. Wilson founded the Video King store chain in 1982, ultimately operating 33 stores in upstate New York and northern Pennsylvania.

He sold all but the six Pennsylvania stores to Philadelphia, Pa.-based West Coast Videos in 1997.

However, West Coast Videos declared bankruptcy, Wilson says, and he purchased the bulk of the stores from the bank that held the businesses.

He later sold the stores to Movie Brands in 2002, only to buy back the 13 upstate stores in October. He adds he has no immediate plans to expand his empire.