CHICAGO, IL – Playboy Enterprises announced Wednesday that it has raised its profit projections for 2005 due to a move to refinance $80 million in debt. The refinance will occur primarily through the sale of $100 million in convertible bonds, the proceeds of which will go towards paying off the $80 million debt and buying back around $5 million in Playboy stock. Shares of Playboy stock rose 1.22 percent on the news.Playboy expects to save $4.6 million in interest payments in 2005 because of the refinance move, and an additional $5.8 million in 2006. According to Playboy, the move could increase its 2005 profits by as much as 47 percent.

“It saves them $6 million a year in ongoing expenses in interest expense. For a company the size of Playboy, that’s significant,” Dennis McAlpine, an analyst with McAlpine Associates, said in response to the move.

Playboy Enterprises, now run by Chairman Christie Hefner, daughter of founder Hugh Hefner, has been aggressively exploring the various revenue possibilities of its brand name in recent years. Recent consumer products attached to the Playboy brand name have included everything from lipstick to jeans to new websites to video games.

“Their strategy has been to utilize the Playboy name in return for equity, and they seem to be doing very well at that,” McAlpine said.