2 weeks Ago By Ari Yanover
Hudson’s Bay insiders, including its head honcho Richard Baker, have until the end of Monday to declare whether they’re interested in making a bid for any of the ailing company’s assets or leases. Twin processes underway to uncover interest in the company’s physical and intellectual property force the department store’s parent company, its subsidiaries and its leaders to reveal whether they’re eyeing an investment in the business or a purchase of its remaining treasures. Everything from leases to the rights to the company’s famed Stripes brand and even its art collection may be up for grabs, though the company nor its court filings have detailed precisely what’s on the table.
Hudson’s Bay declined to comment on whether it or its affiliates, including executive chairman Baker, will seek any of the assets. If they plan to make an offer for leases, Alvarez & Marsal, a third-party appointed by the court to guide Hudson’s Bay through creditor protection, and real estate broker Oberfeld Snowcap Inc. must both be alerted.
Neither replied to a request for comment asking whether they’d received word of a bid. If the insiders want other assets, Alvarez & Marsal and Reflect Advisors, Hudson’s Bay’s financial advisor, must be told. Adam Zalev, Reflect’s managing director, said in an email, “at this time it is not appropriate for us to provide comments to the media.
” In general, insiders at companies under creditor protection make bids for assets because they can get the property “at a heavy, heavy discount,” said Insolvency Insider newsletter editor Dina Kovacevic. “It’s a way to buy the assets for less than they would be worth were they not being sold as part of an insolvency process and especially to absolve the company of its liabilities,” she said. Any bid from Baker, who once told media he plans to run the company until he dies, could extend his reign, which began when his National Realty and Development Corp.
Equity Partners bought Hudson’s Bay in 2008 from the widow of late South Carolina businessman Jerry Zucker for $1.1 billion. Some experts like Joanne McNeish, an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University specializing in marketing, have characterized Baker’s Hudson’s Bay acquisition as “the point at which the company began its slow death.
” “Investment firms are like house flippers ...
A house flipper rarely deals with the underlying business issues,” she said in an email in mid-March..
