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Playboy Enterprises Inc. told Monday that its legendary founder has made an offer to buy the remaining shares of the media empire to take the company private, in a deal valuing the company at $185.

Hugh Hefner, 84, founded Playboy in 1953 and transformed the publication and its models into a cultural mainstay. However, in recent years, the company has weakened because of the decline of advertising revenues.

According to Playboy, Hefner plans to join forces with private equity firm Rizvi Traverse Management LLC for the deal. Taking in consideration the number of shares outstanding on April 30, the offer is $122.5 million, or $5.50 for each share Hefner doesn’t already own. The offered price per share is roughly 40% premium above Friday’s closing stock price of $3.94.

In the proposal letter to Playboy’s board of directors, Hefner said he has no intentions to sell his shares or the company and also rejected any suggestion of a merge between Playboy and other potential suitors.

Playboy shares increased $1.37 or 35%, to $5.31 in Monday premarket trading.

Hugh Hefner requested his former girlfriends Karissa and Kristina Shannon to leave the Playboy compound.

Hefner originally asked the Shannon twins to move from the Playboy Mansion to the next-door Playmate House, following his relationship with Crystal Harris became more serious, but they now completely left the compound as the media mogul was unhappy with the twins having boyfriends.

Karissa, who moved in with actor Sam Jones III, gave explanations: “After a couple of weeks, Hef was getting a little bit upset about the boyfriends, so he wanted us to move out. We need to update people about what’s going on.

“We were not allowed to have boys in the house. That was the absolute number one rule – no boys allowed. That was one of the main reasons we moved out.

“But living there and being seen out with other guys, Hugh was tripping.”

Kristina recently break-up from her “Somewhere’ co-star Stephen Dorff as they were not interested in a long distance relationship.

Kristina said PopEater.com: “There was serious attraction. We really seriously dated for a month.

“He said he was going to be gone for six months and I’m here in Los Angeles. We’re still friends. It wasn’t a serious hardcore thing. We weren’t fighting or anything.”

Hefner recently claimed he thought it would be a great idea for the twins to move out of the Playboy compound.