The Canadian department store Hudson’s Bay is in talks to buy Neiman Marcus, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The deal would exclude debt, according to the report.
Neiman Marcus on Tuesday reported quarterly earnings and said it had hired financial advisers to explore strategic alternatives.
The Texas-based luxury retailer, which is owned by the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board and Ares Management, in Januarypulled its plans to go public. It had filed in 2015 for an initial public offering.
The Bay, as it is known in Canada, last month reportedly made a takeover offer for another American retailer: Macy’s.
Those talks were said to be preliminary, and the two companies were also reportedly exploring other forms of cooperation outside a merger.
‘Our core customer is visiting us less frequently’
As Business Insider’s Hayley Peterson reported in December, Neiman Marcus CEO Karen Katz attributed the retailer’s recent pain to wealthy shoppers who had started comparing prices among retailers on everything they buy.
“There’s no question that our core customer is visiting us a little less frequently,” Katz told analysts on an earnings call at the time.
“Customers in general are less loyal to any one retailer, and I think a lot of that is because of the price transparency of online. I think that’s here to stay. I don’t think that’s going to change.”
The parent company of Hudson’s Bay, Hudson’s Bay Company, started out as a fur-trading business and was founded in 1670 in London. Today it owns companies including Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor.
by Portia Crowe
