Arkhouse, Brigade Capital Raise Buyout Offer for Macy’s to $6.9 Billion

Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management have raised their bid to buy Macy’s for about $6.9 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.

Shares of the department store chain were up 1.1 percent in after-market trading.

The new proposal is to acquire Macy’s stock that Arkhouse and Brigade Capital do not already own for $24.80 each, up from $24 per share offered in March, the report added. Arkhouse, which has a 4.4 percent stake in Macy’s, had earlier raised the offer price to $24 per share from $21.

Arkhouse Management, Brigade Capital and Macy’s did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

The current bid of $24.80 represents a nearly 43 percent premium to Macy’s closing price on Dec. 8 when deal talks first emerged.

Macy’s had ended a nearly two-months long proxy contest with Arkhouse Management in April by adding two of the activist investor’s nominees, Richard Clark and Richard Markee, to its board.

The retailer had then said it was engaging with Arkhouse and Brigade Capital over their revised buyout proposal.

Clark and Markee were joining as part of the board’s finance committee, which in addition to its existing responsibilities, would oversee the evaluation of the proposal from Arkhouse and Brigade.

By Ananya Mariam Rajesh, Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri

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Activist Investors Raise Macy’s Buyout Bid to $6.6 Billion

Investment firms Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management is offering to acquire Macy’s stock they don’t already own for $24 per share, 14 percent above its previous offer from December.