Sale of Lord & Taylor Closes

CINCINNATI-Federated Department Stores Inc. has completed the previously announced sale of its New York-based Lord & Taylor division to National Realty & Development Corp. Equity Partners of Purchase, NY.

The final sale price was adjusted to $1.08 billion, or approximately $840 million after tax. This compares with a sale price of $1.195 billion included in an initial agreement announced June 22. The drop in price comes from NRDC subleasing certain properties from Federated, which come with certain lease restrictions. The rental income on these properties is expected to be approximately $8.6 million per year.

Although the fate of Lord & Taylor has not yet been determined, an interview with NRDC president John Orrico earlier this year revealed the company’s plans at the time of its original announcement. Lord & Taylor is “a brand that we think can be rebuilt, otherwise we wouldn’t have acquired it,” he told GlobeSt.RETAIL in July. “Out of that there may be some real estate plays that are repositioning, but that’s not why we bought them. We bought them to rebuild the company.”

The Lord & Taylor division includes 48 stores in New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia, as well as a distribution center in Wilkes-Barre, PA. Federated, with corporate offices in Cincinnati and New York, operates more than 850 department stores in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico under the names of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.