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El Puerto de Liverpool’s (BMV:LIVEPOLC1) recent 9.9% stake in Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) is clearly not being taken lightly in the retailer’s boardroom. Today, Nordstrom announced it will adopt a limited-duration shareholder rights plan. The plan comes five days after Liverpool disclosed that it owns 15,755,000 shares of the U.S. retailer.
While Nordstrom said the plan wasn’t adopted in response to any specific takeover bid or other proposal to acquire control of the company, it does become exercisable only if a person or group acquires beneficial ownership of 10% or more of the outstanding shares of Nordstrom common stock in a transaction not approved by the Nordstrom Board. So, the plan does appear related to Liverpool’s newly acquired stake.
Liverpool is a Mexican department store chain that operates 285 stores in the country.
For comparison, during the second quarter, Liverpool’s total revenues increased 13.4% to 45.56 billion pesos, or about $2.28 billion. Meanwhile, Nordstrom’s revenue rose 12% to $3.99 billion. However, Liverpool was more profitable in the quarter. The Mexican retailer posted net earnings of 4.474 billion pesos, or $220 million, versus $126 million for Nordstrom.
As far as market value is concerned, Liverpool is valued at $6.5 billion, versus $3.1 billion for Nordstrom.
While Liverpool hasn’t announced its intentions related to the Nordstrom stake, one can easily assume it has bigger ambitions. The Nordstrom board wasn’t going to wait to find out what those ambitions were and quickly adopted the poison pill.
