The Nordstrom department store (Saul Loeb/Getty Images)

Nordstroms try nabbing Nordstrom for no premium

For the second time in seven years, the namesake family is trying to buy Nordstrom on a Nordstrom Rack budget.

9/5/24 2:40PM

Normally, when an interested party wants to take a public company private, they offer to purchase the company at a premium to its current valuation. The reasons for the premium can vary, but two common ones are that a strong premium discourages competing bids, and management teams are more likely to reject offers that they perceive as too low. Take Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter, for example: he offered to purchase all outstanding shares at an 18% premium to the stock’s closing price from the day before.

Another example is Macy’s. On December 10, 2023, an investor group led by Arkhouse Management and Bridge Capital Management offered to acquire Macy’s for $5.8 billion, or $21 per share, which was a 32% premium to the retailer’s stock price from the previous trading day’s close. After Macy’s board rejected the offer, the bidders raised their price to $24 per share, then $24.80, but Macy’s board ultimately rejected these offers as well, stating that “it was unclear that the investors could finance a deal and it was not in shareholders’ best interest.”

The prevalence of the “acquisition premium” makes the details of a recent offer for another clothing retailer especially interesting:

The Nordstrom family and Mexican retailer El Puerto de Liverpool, who collectively own 44% of the company, made an offer Wednesday to purchase all outstanding shares of the company for $23 per share.

Nordstrom’s closing price on Tuesday? $22.78. And the stock closed above $23 as recently as July 18 of this year. The acquisition premium here is effectively $0. Per Bloomberg, Morningstar analyst David Swartz said that the board might reject the bid for being too low.

For context, in April, after the Nordstrom family announced that it was looking to take its retail chain private, the company’s board formed a “special committee of independent and disinterested directors,” which did not include board members Erik and Pete Nordstrom, to “carefully evaluate any proposal from Erik and Pete Nordstrom” and other parties. This is the first of such offers since the formation of the special committee, but it’s not the first time the Nordstrom family tried to take its company private.

In 2017, the Nordstrom family looked to take the company private at $48 to $50 per share in what would have been a ~$10 billion leveraged buyout with PE firm Leonard Green & Partners, but the deal failed because they 1) struggled to raise enough debt and 2) offered too low of a price to shareholders. To quote The Wall Street Journal from 2018:

“This should not be a take under situation,” said Tony Scherrer, director of research at Smead Capital Management, which owns nearly 900,000 Nordstrom shares. “It seems like they want to pay a zero premium, and that seems like a tough place from which to negotiate. I would think they would want shareholders to applaud them on their way out the door.”
The special committee said it had directed its advisers and company management to not allow the group to conduct further due diligence unless it “promptly and substantially” improves its offer.

Seven years later, while the debt issue is less relevant (the 2017 deal would have required $7 to $8 billion in financing, compared to $250 million in this one), the Nordstrom family is, once again, hoping the board will bite on a lowball bid. While the $50 bid from seven years ago looks like a missed opportunity with the stock down more than 50% since then, it’s going to be tough for a board to agree to a take-private deal with $0 upside for current shareholders, especially considering their special committee was formed to explore “possible avenues to enhance shareholder value.”

Max Knoblauch23h

The Trump administration is reportedly planning a 50% made-in-America requirement for USMCA tariff relief

Qualifying for USMCA-related lower tariffs may soon require more US-made vehicle components, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal.

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to introduce a 50% US content requirement for vehicles covered by the trade pact to receive lower tariffs. The content would be measured by cost, according to the WSJ.

There currently isn’t any US-specific requirement for those lower tariff rates, but in order to receive preferential tariffs, vehicles are must contain at least 75% regional content (components made in North America). Per Reuters reporting, the Trump admin is seeking to raise the regional requirement to 82%.

These reported plans are subject to change as the US negotiates USMCA terms with Mexico over the next few months.

Overall, Tesla will likely have the easiest time qualifying for any stricter requirements. The automaker’s vehicles contained the highest amount of US/Canadian content in 2025, according to American University research. Ford, GM, and Stellantis all scored lower.

Notably: the underlying government data that many domestic content measurements rely on intentionally combines US and Canadian components, so it’s difficult to know exactly how much of any given vehicle is specifically US-made.

Exclusive | Trump Administration Wants Autos Under USMCA to Be at Least 50% Made in America

These reported plans are subject to change as the US negotiates USMCA terms with Mexico over the next few months.

Tom Jones5/29/26

The $640,000 Luce makes the average Ferrari look like a bargain

Put aside the shape; put aside the smoothing out of Ferrari’s iconic sharp edges; put aside, even, the calls from former Chairman and President Luca Cordero di Montezemolo to “take the Prancing Horse off.” On the grounds of price alone, Luce detractors might have a point.

By now, many of us will have read the criticisms of Ferrari’s first fully electric vehicle, as the Luce — which was unveiled to the world earlier this week and promptly saw the company’s shares crash out in New York and Milan — gets subtly shaded by competitors online and not-so-subtly shaded by basically everyone else.

What makes all of this worse for Ferrari is that, even by the luxury car maker’s notoriously high standards, they’ve slapped a pretty hefty price tag on the Luce, and the company’s CEO, Benedetto Vigna, has already been forced to defend the €550,000 ($640,000) price point, saying yesterday that it’s “fair to pay for innovation,” per Reuters.

While Ferrari’s cars have been getting more expensive of late, as recently as 2022, Ferrari’s average revenue per car sold was around $340,000. At nearly twice that price, this new electric model is obviously proving a little much (visually, conceptually, and financially) for many loyal and long-standing fans of the Prancing Horse to stomach.