Bloomingdale’s Goes Shopping in Tokyo

The chairman of Bloomingdale’s said today that he has talked to Japanese retailers about backing his proposed management buyout of the trendy department store chain.

One major Japanese retailer, however, said it declined an offer from Bloomingdale’s chairman Marvin Traub.

Traub also indicated that the Bloomingdale’s name may be affiliated with retailing in Japan in the future.

“I am excited, as a longtime retailer, with opportunities to do retail business in Japan,” he told reporters. “I will be very pleased to have Bloomingdale’s cooperate with premium retailers in Japan to successfully exploit our name and reputation.”

Traub did not reveal details of his negotiations in Japan. Bloomingdale’s 17 stores have been put up for sale by Campeau Corp., a Canadian-based conglomerate burdened with $11.5 billion in debt.

The Bloomingdale’s chairman said he has been negotiating with four Japanese groups about backing a management buyout, but he declined to identify them.

A spokesman for the Osaka-based Hankyu Department Store said it had turned down an offer from Traub. Spokesman Katsuhiro Hayashi said Hankyu President Shoji Fukumitsu had met with Traub in Osaka on Tuesday at Traub’s request.

The spokesman gave no details of the offer rejected by Fukumitsu, whose company had sales of $2.6 billion last year.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the leading Japanese economic newspaper, reported that Traub asked Hankyu to finance $250 million of the $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion needed for the management buyout.

Officials of Tokyu Department Store, another major retailer mentioned in press reports as a possible investor in Bloomingdale’s, declined to comment.

Parties to the proposed buyout, Traub told reporters, are about 75 Bloomingdale’s executives willing to put up their own money, a group of “first-class Japanese retailers” and financial institutions in the United States, Japan and Europe.