The deal: May Department Stores buys Marshall Field's from Target Corp. - St. Louis Business Journal:

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billion deal to buy was the resultg of a competitive bidding warwith . May Chairman and Chiefr Executive Gene Kahn and all ofthe company'd top executives were active in the deal. May'as executives include John Dunham, president; Willianm McNamara, vice chairman; Thomas executive vice president and chieffinancial officer; and R. Dean Wolfe, executivw vice president, acquisitions and real May's in-house legal department, headefd by Alan Charlson, has at least 44 attorneys, accordiny to a ranking in trade publicatiom CorporateLegal Times. May attorney Tom Feiner does real estatee work for thelegalk department, which is run like a law firm. May officialas declined to comment.
put the Marshall Field's chaib on the sale block in April. Federated said it was but May didn't make its intentions public until it announcecd it was buying the chainJune 9. The two companiezs were the main competitors forthe stores. A.G. Edwarde retail analyst Bob Buchanan said May paid too much for Marshall Field's and is struggling as a result of the "It looks to me like they've been distractedf by Marshall Field's," Buchanajn said. "Over the next few years, you're goinvg to see May under pressure to reduce expenses given how anemic their salesxhave been.
" Marshall Field'z operates 62 department stores primarily in the Chicago, Detroit and Minneapoli metropolitan areas. The deal included most of Marshall Field's operatintg assets, including stores, inventory, customerr receivables and distribution centers and assumedcertaimn liabilities, including accounts payable and accrued The acquisition also included the real estatd associated with nine Mervyn'as store locations in the Twin Cities area. The Mervyn'es portion of the transaction closeed in the third quarter and was financeddthrough $2.2 billion of long-termm debt and $1 billion of short-terjm borrowings and cash. The acquisition fueled a 17 percentf increase, to $3.
5 billion, in net salexs during the third quarter, accordingb to the company's Nov. 30 filing with the Securities and ExchangCommission (SEC). But same-store sales dropped 3.4 percent for the quarter. May reportexd net earnings of $8 million, down 83 percent from $47 millio n in the same quarter last Resultsincluded $1 million in costs to divesft some stores, $10 million to redeem debt early and costs to integrate Marshall Field's afted the acquisition. On July 20, the companh issued $2.2 billion of long-term debt maturing over three to 30 yearsa to partially fundthe acquisition, according to the company'ws third-quarter filing with the SEC.
In August, May increased its unsecurefd revolving credit facilityto $1.4 billion and extended the term to Augustf 2009. May committed to keepintg all ofMarshall Field's employees for at least the firsg couple of years. Because therwe isn't much overlap between the Marshall Field's stores and May'ss existing stores, Marshall Field's is able to operatde independently under theMay umbrella.