Sears offers $6.75 a share for Restoration
Shoppers make their way past Sears at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Illinois, October 22, 2007.
Credit: Reuters/John Gress
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Sears Holdings Corp (SHLD.O) has proposed buying furnishings retailer Restoration Hardware Inc RSTO.O for $6.75 per share, according to a regulatory filing on Monday.
The offer, made in a November 23 letter to Restoration that Sears included in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, would top a management-led buyout valued at $6.70 a share, or $267 million, that Restoration agreed to earlier this month.
Restoration Hardware shares were off less than 1 percent in afternoon trading, while Sears' stock was down about 3 percent.
Sears Holdings, which operates the Kmart and Sears, Roebuck chains, last week disclosed it owns a 13.7 percent stake in Restoration and had initially proposed a $4-a-share bid after being informed in late October that Restoration was weighing a management buyout.
The Hoffman Estates, Illinois, retailer asked a special committee of Restoration's board for confidential information to submit a binding proposal for it, which was denied, according to the letter to a special panel of Restoration's board attached to the SEC filing.
The proposed $6.75 per-share tender offer, therefore, was based solely on publicly available information, Sears Executive Vice President William C. Crowley said in the letter.
Restoration announced on November 8 that it agreed to a buyout in a deal that includes private equity firm Catterton Partners. It is soliciting competing proposals from third parties during a 35-day period that ends December 13.
A representative for Restoration Hardware and a spokesman for Sears Holdings both declined to comment.
Sears Holdings, which is controlled by hedge fund manager Edward Lampert, posted a 40 percent drop in quarterly profit in August and has unveiled new marketing campaigns for its Kmart and Sears chains in a bid to attract customers. Sales at stores open at least a year at both Kmart and Sears, Roebuck have sagged for the past six quarters.
Lampert said at Sears Holdings' annual meeting in May the retailer was considering acquisitions and other ways to use its cash.
Restoration shares were down 5 cents at $7.01 in afternoon Nasdaq trading, while Sears Holdings' stock fell $3.28, or 2.9 percent, to $109.30.
(Reporting by Karen Jacobs in Atlanta and Aarthi Sivaraman in New York; editing by Andre Grenon)
