Spiegel officially handed over another part of its business to Pangea Holdings Ltd. when U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Cornelius Blackshear in New York approved its acquisition of the Spiegel Catalog business Tuesday.
The deal included $2 million in cash, $22 million worth of inventory commitments and $29.4 million in assumed liabilities.
“The procedure is if there are qualified overbids, they would hold an auction,” Spiegel spokesperson Debbie Koopman said. “It was my understanding that there were no qualified overbids.”
Spiegel Catalog's sales plummeted to $265 million last year from $522 million in 2002. In its peak year, 1994, Spiegel Catalog generated $1.2 billion in net sales.
The sale is scheduled to close “within days.” It includes the rights to www.spiegel.com and the Spiegel brand name.
The deal follows a $28.6 million bid in May by Pangea that was accepted for Spiegel's Newport News women's apparel business.
When asked about the status of Eddie Bauer, Koopman said, “we're continuing to work through the process. This is going to take several months.” Spiegel retained Miller Buckfire Lewis Ying & Co. to solicit parties interested in acquiring its Eddie Bauer division.
“They are managing the process,” she said. “We are working to identify a potential buyer for Eddie Bauer.”
Eddie Bauer produced sales of $1.27 billion in 2003.
“We haven't given a specific deadline,” she said. “I would expect that it's something they would expect to be completed by the end of the year.”
