Let me box these up for you!
The struggling shoe giant that owns the Payless chain — as well as a closetful of footwear brands including Sperry Top-Sider, Saucony, Stride Rite and Keds — is scrambling to cut a single deal to sell the whole company at once, sources told The Post.
While such a deal isn’t a foregone conclusion, sources said the best hope for Topeka, Kan.-based Collective Brands may be a bid from archrival Wolverine Worldwide, the owner of the Hush Puppies and Merrell brands.
“Wolverine may be the best positioned (bidder), and they would be interested in buying all of the shoe brands” as opposed to cherry-picking a few of them, according to a source close to the situation.
The source added, however, that Wolverine wouldn’t buy the money-losing Payless chain. Instead, the Michigan-based cobbler would likely team up for its bid with a buyout firm looking to turn around the stores — possibly Golden Gate Capital or Sun Capital.
While some analysts have estimated Collective Brands is worth as much as $27 a share, one person close to the process said a deal is more likely to close near $20 a share, or about $1.2 billion.
Fresh speculation yesterday about a possible bidding war helped boost Collective’s shares 95 cents, or 6.4 percent, to close at $15.89, giving Collective Brands a market capitalization of $962 million.
Indeed, Wolverine isn’t alone, as a first round of bids comes due this week, sources said. Competitors including Dr. Scholl’s owner Brown Shoe, and the Finish Line chain are gearing up to bid, and may team up with big private-equity firms for bids, banking sources said.
Insiders have speculated that TPG and Bain Capital could be among the private-equity backers.
A spokeswoman for Collective Brands, which last August hired investment bank Perella Weinberg to explore a sale, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
While Payless stores have been battered in recent years, some critics say it’s partly because of a wrongheaded bid to take the chain further upscale.