The company has historically relied on Goldman Sachs for much of its defense work, and more recently had Luminis Partners and Clayton Utz on its side.
But Goldman Sachs has since switched to the David Jones in the game, as Street Talk first reported earlier last month, where he is working for the South African department store owner Woolworths.
Whatever happens at David Jones, it’s likely to be very important to his archrival Myer.
If a private equity firm acquires David Jones, there’s a chance they’ll be interested in adding Myer. If it’s a strategic suitor, which seems less likely, then you can bet the suitor would also be thinking of Myer.
Either way, both Myer and David Jones have realized at various stages in the past that there could be significant synergies in combining the flagship retailers, and they’d want to be back on top of all their options now that the sector is up for grabs.
When Myer proposed a $3 billion stock-based “merger of equals” with David Jones in October 2013, it was pitched as a way to create a department store powerhouse with $5 billion sales, 100+ stores in two separate brands and much more. -Influence needed to negotiate better deals with owners and suppliers.
Myer’s short-term and not necessarily unrelated issue is Solomon Lew and his Premier Investments, which increased its stake to 23 percent of the company’s issued shares last month.
Premier Investments coupled its purchase with a new call for board representation, asking for one of its own to join Myer’s board at the annual general meeting in November. He nominated Terrence McCartney, a former agent for Coles Myer who is also a non-executive director of Premier.
It comes as investors take a fresh look at Myer, which analysts expect to post revenue of $2.9 billion and EBITDA of $423 million in fiscal 2022, knowing there could be changes on the horizon.
The activity has sent Myer shares up 9 percent in the past month, including a 6.9 percent jump on Monday.
The topic of conversation on Monday was a line of 10 million shares – about 1.2 percent of the company – that changed hands in the early afternoon. Third Party Platform, which clears trades on behalf of smaller brokers, handled the shares based on market share data from Bloomberg.
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