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After more than a year of delays, Toys “R” Us is finally cranking up to go public next month, The Post has learned.
The giant toy chain — which originally slated its initial public offering for last summer — has set a preliminary schedule for an investor road show to begin May 4, culminating in a market pricing on May 18 with trading to begin the next day, according to sources close to the retailer.
The IPO, expected to fetch more than $800 million, is being underwritten by a group of bulge-bracket banks led by Goldman Sachs, sources said. Toys “R” Us shares are expected to list on the New York Stock Exchange, according to the company’s regulatory filings, and trade under the ticker TOYS.
“This time it looks like it’s for real,” said one insider close to the situation, noting that the 62-year-old chain, based in Wayne, NJ, and its owners have put off the IPO at least twice since The Post first broke the story last February of the retailer’s plans to go public.
The IPO is proceeding despite a disappointing holiday season that spurred a decline in the company’s fourth-quarter profits, to $330 million from $387 million a year earlier.
“There has been a lot of hand-wringing over the Christmas performance,” according to one company insider, noting that executives had been gunning for an increase in holiday earnings.
Top brass was likewise disappointed that sales rose just 2 percent to $6 billion, hurt by weak performance at its overseas stores and flagging demand for video games.
On the bright side, however, sources said executives were pleasantly surprised as the retailer lured an unprecedented number of customers away from main rivals Walmart and Target. Discount giant Walmart was the conspicuous loser in toys, shedding more than 2 percentage points of market share, according to BMO Capital Markets.
“This was probably the most market share Toys ‘R’ Us has gained versus the competition in 20 years,” said one person close to the company. “You can bet they’re going to play that up, and rightfully so.”
This week, the company named former Mattel exec Neil Friedman as president of its US stores — and likely successor to Gerry Storch, the company’s highly regarded chief executive, sources said.
Taken private for $6.6 billion in 2005 by KKR, Bain Capital and Vornado Realty, Toys “R” Us had originally angled to go public last summer, according to people close to the situation.
But the company’s owners, particularly KKR, were skittish about the choppy performance of other big-box retailers, including Home Depot, Target and Best Buy, sources said.
While Toys “R” Us and its investors had weighed proceeding with an IPO as late as September amid a booming stock market, “time ran out and they had to focus on Christmas,” a source said. james.covert@nypost.com