Private equity firm Sycamore Partners' $ 3 a share bid for Talbots Inc is "opportunistic and a very low offer," a top investor in the ailing retailer said.On Tuesday, private equity firm Sycamore Partners, which owns 9.9 percent of Talbots, offered to purchase the company for about $212 million. Talbots was worth about $110.3 million at the time."The company's numbers right now are distorted by merchandising issues, so I wouldn't use the current numbers in valuing it," Mitch Williams, a fund manager at OppenheimerFunds told Reuters in an interview.Oppenheimer holds a 11.9 percent stake in the company -- making it the biggest institutional stakeholder in the Hingham, Massachusetts based company -- followed by Sycamore, according to Thomson Reuters data.
The Talbots, Inc. is a specialty retailer and direct marketer of women?s apparel, accessories and shoes sold under the Talbots brand. Shares of TLB traded higher by 2.75% or $0.073/share to $2.72. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $1.46 and as high as $10.40. On average, 1861340 shares of TLB exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 1605942.
