Pete and Erik Nordstrom have offered to take the Seattle-based company private for $23 per share, with financial backing from the rest of their family and Mexican department store chain El Puerto de Liverpool.
The coalition of Nordstrom family members and Liverpool are proposing a deal in which the family would collectively own 50.1% of the company, while Liverpool would own the rest, according to a Wednesday regulatory filing. Liverpool took a 9.6% stake in Nordstrom about two years ago.
The Nordstroms and Liverpool are committing cash and equity to the deal, valued at nearly $3.8 billion, along with $250 million in new bank financing to purchase shares from all investors.
Nordstrom’s board of directors confirmed in a news release Wednesday that its special committee had received the offer. The special committee was formed in April in response to Erik and Peter Nordstrom’s interest in going private.
“The special committee and the other independent directors will carefully review the proposal in consultation with independent financial and legal advisors to determine the course of action that is in the best interests of Nordstrom and all shareholders,” the special committee said in the news release. “No action is required by Nordstrom shareholders at this time.”
Erik and Peter Nordstrom, respectively CEO and president of the company, are the great-grandsons of founder John W. Nordstrom, who founded the department store chain as a shoe store in 1901. The brothers cited their father Bruce Nordstrom’s health earlier this year as a motive for wanting to take the company private, according to the regulatory filing.
Bruce Nordstrom, the company’s former chairman who helped guide it through massive growth, died in May at age 90.
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