Coach to Buy Kate Spade in $2.4 Billion Deal

A statement released by Coach said the combined company will create a "leading luxury lifestyle company" supported by "significant expertise in handbag design, merchandising, supply chain, and retail operations."

The luxury retailer Coach announced on Monday that it agreed to buy Kate Spade for $18.50 a share, for a total transaction value of $2.4 billion.
The per-share acquisition price is 27.5% higher than Kate Spade's share price as of December 27, the last day of trading before deal rumors started affecting the stock price.
Still, it's 23% below a nine-month high of $24.10 reached February 27.
Shares for the handbag and accessories maker surged by 8.1% in premarket trading Monday, while Coach's stock was little changed.
"Kate Spade has a truly unique and differentiated brand positioning with a broad lifestyle assortment and strong awareness among consumers, especially millennials," Coach CEO Victor Luis said in the release.
Kate Spade has been under external pressure to do a deal since November, when the New York-based hedge fund Caerus Investors sent the company's board a letter pushing for a sale.
"We have become increasingly frustrated by management's inability to achieve profit margins comparable to industry peers," Caerus' founder, Ward Davis, and managing partner, Brian Agnew, wrote at the time.

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Talks of BURBERRY to Buy COACH - What Could This Mean?

Burberry Group Plc shares rose the most in almost eight months after the Betaville financial blog said Coach Inc. is considering merging with the British trench coat maker. Burberry Group Plc shares rose the most in almost eight months after the Betaville financial blog said Coach Inc. is considering merging with the British trench coat maker. Start your day with what’s moving markets. Get our markets daily newsletter. 

The U.S. maker of purses and accessories has been working with financial advisers at Evercore for several weeks on a possible deal, the website said, citing two people familiar with the situation it didn’t name. Burberry shares traded 3 percent higher at 1,494 pence at 1:59 p.m. in London after rising as much as 8.1 percent, the biggest intraday gain since Feb. 26. Coach traded at the equivalent of $36.21 in Frankfurt, up about 1 percent from Thursday’s close in New York. Representatives for Burberry and Coach declined to comment. Earlier this year, the Financial Times reported that London-based Burberry asked its advisers at Robey Warshaw to help prepare a defense for a possible bid.

“A merger of Coach and Burberry would primarily be a merger of problems,” Exane BNP Paribas analyst Luca Solca said in a note. “M&A history in luxury has shown that mergers don’t obviously help in regaining brand traction and desirability.”
Burberry and Coach are both grappling with a slowdown in luxury spending, and have reshuffled management to try and turn their fortunes around. Burberry has named Marco Gobbetti to replace Christopher Bailey as CEO next year, while Coach named Valentino veteran Wendy Kahn to run designer shoe brand Stuart Weitzman, which it bought last year.