Increase Profits

Earlier this week I read an article on the Bloomberg website explaining how the perfume company who creates and markets scents after different celebrities, "Parlux," was in the process of being bought out by one of the companies that they sell to, something like "Perfumania."
There are several reasons why I chose to talk about this article. First I saw Perfumania's move as a way to enter a new profit pool, but then I thought that maybe they were creating a entry barrier to competitors by controlling some of the branded perfumes that many companies like to carry simply because of the celebrity name that is on the label of the perfume. I guess only time will tell as to what strategy they will ultimately use as far as those to go. They could either continue to sell their newly acquired scents to their competitors or they could stop selling them altogether to them. If it where me I would definitely go with the latter seeing as  there are many scent knock-offs and I would rather take part in some of the profit and build my company name at then same time while letting someone else spend their dollars to do it.
Another thing I thought of was discussed in class yesterday. There are many companies who are looking to create a bigger gap between what a consumer is willing to pay and what it costs to produce the product. This is mostly what the strategy part of the article referenced. It was brought up that by acquiring Parlux, Perfumania would be able to reduce much of their cost seeing as something like 80% of the perfumes they market are created and sold to them by Parlux. After reading it I have thought several times about Good to Great and his comments about how mergers seldom create a great company.
Also after I read the article, it was entitled "Paris Hilton Scent Gets 218% in Likely Parlux Takeover: Real M&A." I found myself thinking of different way to get some extra cash so that I could by some of the stock. I thought to myself that if I only had $1000 that I was willing to give I might be able to sell the stock in a couple months and get $218,000 in return. Then it hit me, do companies pay the media to write article such as this one. I mean with a title like that who wouldn't go out and want to buy some of Parfumania's stock. And with the increasing price of their stock, it was mentioned in the article that it wouldn't take long for Parfumania to reach a value where they could get the funding to buy Parlux. Was the entire article part of a strategy to increase public awareness and get investors to send their dollars toward Parfumania?