There appears to be some funny business going on with Frisbees and Hula Hoops.

A Hong Kong-based toy manufacturer, Grand Toys International Ltd., said on Thursday that it was acquiring Wham-O, the maker of classic American toys like the Hula Hoop, from Cornerstone Strategic Management for $35 million. After the deal was announced, American depository shares of Grand Toys more than doubled in price on the Nasdaq market.

So who is this new inheritor of the Wham-O legacy, with all the interest in retro toys?

The chief executive and majority owner of Grand Toys is Jeff Hsieh. The head of Cornerstone is identified as his wife, Raylin Hsieh. But as recently as 2006, Jeff Hsieh was listed as holding the top role at Cornerstone (as well as an affiliate called Cornerstone Overseas Investments).

So it appears that one Hsieh company sold Wham-O to another Hsieh company.

Huh?

Getting an explanation from the company is not easy. Grand Toys' website appears to be down, and the listed telephone number for the company in Hong Kong puts calls directly into an unidentified automated mailbox. (Calls to the company were not immediately returned.)

But the sideways deal has benefited Grand Toys in one important way: It has staved off a delisting from the Nasdaq market.

Its shares had been largely trading below $1 since December. On Tuesday, Nasdaq sent a letter to the company saying that it would be delisted if its stock continued to trade below $1. On Thursday, Wham-O! The shares rose to $2.37.

Hsieh's Cornerstone first got hold of Wham-O in 2006 from the Charterhouse Group, a private equity firm, which had acquired it from Mattel in 1997 for $20 million. Charterhouse grew the acquisition up with some small add-ons, but had trouble unloading Wham-O for their $80 million asking price less than 10 years later.

What Cornerstone paid for Wham-O was something below Charterhouse's original price tag, but the exact amount was not disclosed.

Questions had been raised about another Jeff Hsieh toy company four years ago. A deal between Marvel Enterprises and Toy Biz Worldwide seemed oddly and unevenly beneficial to Marvel. Investors complained that they had trouble finding out who owned Toy Biz Worldwide. When Marvel was pressured to provide details, it emerged that Hsieh was C.E.O and that Cornerstone Overseas Investments owned 99.99 percent of the stock.

It may bear remembering that another Wham-O classic is the Slip 'n Slide.