Luxury retail chain Neiman Marcus has agreed to be sold for about $5 billion to a group of financiers with a history in the industry, executives close to the negotiations said Sunday night.
Neiman, known for its Christmas catalog that features outrageous items such as $400,000 his and her robots, is set to announce the deal today, the executives said.
The buyers are Texas Pacific Group, a buyout firm that recently turned around J. Crew and owns Burger King, and buyout firm Warburg Pincus, the executives said.
The sale of Neiman, which has 37 stores across the nation, including one at Denver’s Cherry Creek Shopping Center, and also owns fashion brands such as Kate Spade, comes as a wave of mergers and acquisitions is reshaping the retailing industry. In February, Federated Department Stores, which owns Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, agreed to buy May Department Stores, which owns Lord & Taylor and Marshall Field’s, for $11 billion.
Late last year, Barneys was sold to Jones New York for $400 million. And last week, Saks Fifth Avenue parent Saks sold two regional chains, Proffitt’s and McRae’s, to a fellow retailer, Belk, for $622 million.
For at least three years, Neiman has represented the gold standard of the retailing industry, setting the pace for other luxury retailers. As chief executives at Saks Fifth Avenue came and went, one, Burton Tanksy of Neiman Marcus, kept extolling his stores.
For Texas Pacific and Warburg, the attraction to Neiman is its loyal customer base and demographic trends toward higher incomes among the upper class. The firms also hope to expand the number of Neiman stores across the country, opening stores in places such as Seattle.