Mergers & Acquisitions

Foot Locker has started the ball rolling toward acquiring Runners Point Warenhandelsges, a specialty athletic store and online retailer based in Recklinghausen, Germany, for a total cash consideration of approximately $94 million. RPG is

Private equity firms TPG Capital and Warburg Pincus are exploring a sale or public offering of Neiman Marcus Group, according to a Bloomberg News report late on Sunday. The private equity firms, which bought the Dallas-based retailer in 2005 for $5.1 billion, have interviewed banks and are about to hire Credit Suisse Group AG to run the dual track process, according to the report, which cited two people familiar with the situation.

The candle manufacturer may be worth 10 times its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization  of around $200 million, the sources said, speaking on condition of

There's been a lot of buzz about who will make a bid for Barnes & Noble, with the current rumors including Wal-Mart and Microsoft. Both companies had kicked the tires in the past, and so it seems reasonable to expect they'd look again. But the real player in the space — and in some ways the most strategic buyer — would be Amazon.com, for a number of reasons that reflect the changing business of brick-and-mortar retail and Amazon's evolution.

The company, which was acquired by Chicago-based buyout firm Madison Dearborn Partners for $1.6 billion in 2006, is working with Barclays and Bank of America Merrill Lynch on a sale process that's still in the early stages, the people said. The people asked not to be named because the process isn't public. Representatives of Barclays and Bank of America declined to comment. Madison Dearborn didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Hot Topic, the operator of more than 800 teen specialty-retail stores, agreed to be bought by private-equity firm Sycamore Partners for about $600 million. The agreement was unanimously approved by Hot Topic's board and will require shareholder and regulatory approval, the companies said today in a statement. The offer of $14 a share is 30 percent higher than Hot Topic's closing price yesterday.

JustFab, a fashion retail and styling platform, announcing that it's purchased children's fashion brand and personalized e-commerce service FabKids. Financial terms weren't disclosed. The kid-focused e-commerce site was launched by ShopStyle founder and serial entrepreneur Andy Moss, and mom and actress Christina Applegate, in August 2012. Instead of offering a box of separates shipped monthly, FabKids sends out one complete outfit it's designed in-house and personalized to the child, based on a custom profile filled out at sign-up.

For Totsy, the business of selling apparel and accessories to expecting parents and their growing families via flash sales was good in 2012; apparently so good that it's acquiring the assets of Mamasource, a deals site for moms. The terms of the acquisition, announced this morning, weren't disclosed. But in an interview with Upstart Business Journal, Totsy Co-Founder and CEO Guillaume Gauthereau said the three-year-old startup has been looking for a company to acquire for some time and that its goal was pure and simple: growth, as in 2 million additional members and all the revenue that comes with it.

Luxury bedding company Cuddledown Inc. has been acquired by American Capital Ltd.'s Potpourri Group, a specialty catalog company. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. American Capital, a publicly traded private equity firm, said the transaction was completed in December. The deal marks the second acquisition of a Maine-based company by the Potpourri Group in recent months. In June, it acquired FetchDog, a dog accessories catalog and internet site co-founded by actress Glenn Close and her husband, David Shaw.

While Times Square was preparing to drop a ball and Kimye was preparing to drop a bomb on New Year's Eve, Gap was finalizing the details of its acquisition of specialty retailer Intermix. WWD reports that the deal, which fueled some rumors and speculation last month, closed on Dec. 31 to the tune of $130 million. The partnership should aid both brands: Intermix can use Gap's massive reach to grow its own retail and e-tail presence, while Gap can benefit from Intermix's expertise in the contemporary luxury market. But most exciting: Gap also intends to beef up Intermix's website with some innovative-sounding improvements.