Being the man at the top of Playboy magazine isn’t all fun, games and beautiful models. Sometimes it can be heady business management and Hugh Hefner is now revealing in his bid to control the enterprise that he founded back in 1953 with his all Marilyn Monroe issue of the magazine.

The iconic founder, now famous for his many beautiful girlfriends, red satin smoking jacket and endless issues of Playboy magazine, has made a proposal to it’s board to pay $5.50 for the outstanding shares. The price is at almost a 40 percent premium over Playboy’s closing price on Friday of $3.94. 

Hef owns 69.5 percent of Playboy’s Class A stock and 27.7 percent of its Class B shares, the company said. Mr. Hefner founded Playboy magazine in 1953 and turned the publication and its scantily clad models into a cultural mainstay, but the company has struggled in recent years.

In buy the remaining shares of the media empire, Mr Hefner would take the company private, in a deal that values the company at $185 million. Having spent the past 57 years building his empire, 84 year old Mr Hefner has made his magazine the most famous men’s magazine in history but in recent years, the company has faltered as advertising revenue dwindled with the onset of Internet popularity for all things written.

Hef plans to team up with private equity firm Rizvi Traverse Management LLC for the deal and based on the number of shares outstanding at the end of April 2010, the proposal offers $122.5 million, or $5.50 for each share Hefner doesn’t already own, which was a nearly 40 percent premium above a recent closing stock price of $3.94.

Playboy magazine August 2010

In his proposal letter to Playboy’s board of directors, Hefner said he has no plans to sell his shares or the company and also denied any suggestion that there should be a merger between Playboy and other potential suitors.

When negotiating a pay out of £500,00 for total access to her ex husband, Prince Andrew, thankfully Sarah Ferguson kept some of her dignity by keeping her clothes on, but that’s not the tact that English ‘it girl and rumoured glamour model, Kelly Brook, has taken.

Since showing her 34D assets off to the world in several UK lad’s magazines, such as FHM, Nuts and Zoo, the 30 year old has attracted the attention of Playboy entrepreneur, Hugh Hefner, who is now rumoured to have signed Miss Brook for a Playboy shoot later this year.

Mr Hefner has placed a value of £500,00 on Kelly’s Mediteranean shoot which will take place later this month. It will now place the brunette, English TV celebrity, Brook up in the higher eshelons of iconic Playboy models such as Marilyn Monroe, Jordan (Katie Price), Ursula Andress and Bo Derek.

Who’d have thought?

       Ten Facts About Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Magazine
 

1. Playboy is still the largest selling “men’s magazine”, selling about 2.6 million a month in the U.S.

2. In 1970, Playboy became the first gentleman’s magazine to be printed in braille.
   

3. Playboy’s original title was to be Stag Party, but an unrelated outdoor magazine, Stag, contacted Hefner and informed him that they would protect their trademark if he were to launch his magazine with that name.
   

4. The best-selling Playboy edition was the November 1972 edition, which sold 7,161,561 copies. One-quarter of all American college men were buying the magazine every month. On the cover was model Pam Rawlings, photographed by Rowland Scherman.

5. Playboy is banned in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.