As a result of poor sales, Macy’s is looking to free up some cash by selling stakes in its flagship stores, including the iconic Herald Square location.
Activist investor Starboard Value has been leaning on Macy’s—the biggest department store in the US—to squeeze more value out of its property holdings in order to bump up its share price, Bloomberg reports.
(Last year, the talk of the town was a potential REIT spinoff, which the retailer ultimately decided against.)
An unseasonably warm winter has hit Macy’s holiday numbers hard, and partly as a result the firm recently cut its profit outlook and unveiled plans to slash roughly 4,800 jobs.
Macy’s is working with real estate investment bank Eastdil Secured to find partners for potential JVs at stores in Manhattan, San Francisco, Chicago and Minneapolis.
Macy’s is also working with developer Tishman Speyer to look into other redevelopment opportunities, and in August Tishman agreed to buy one of Macy’s Brooklyn sites and add 10 floors of office space on top of it.
Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs are also in the mix, working as junior partners with Eastdil to sniff out partnership opportunities. [Bloomberg]
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