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Nordstrom has departed Wall Street, having delisted from the New York Stock Exchange as of Wednesday, and took its leave with wind in its sails.
The Nordstrom family and Mexican department store conglomerate El Puerto de Liverpool earlier in the week announced they completed their all-cash acquisition of the retailer for $24.25 per share, or about $6.25 billion. The Nordstroms retain a controlling stake.
Brothers Erik and Pete Nordstrom are once again teamed up, serving as co-chief executives of the department store launched by their great-grandfather. Five years ago the company dismantled that team structure, naming Erik CEO and Pete chief brand officer. Previously, the Nordstroms and their brother Blake, who died unexpectedly in 2019, led the company as co-presidents.
With an onslaught of tariffs from the Trump administration undermining consumer confidence and potentially the economy, some analysts had speculated that the deal could falter. It would have been a familiar disappointment: The family tried but failed to drum up enough financing to take the retailer private eight years ago.
This time, however, they succeeded. Nordstrom will operate as a private company with relative strength in the embattled department store space. The retailer is poised to take share from Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, with the strongest year-on-year traffic growth among luxury department stores, according to Placer.ai. Thanks to both its full-line and off-price Rack operations, Nordstrom is the only department store with “consistently positive comps over the last few quarters,” according to TD Cowen analysts led by Oliver Chen.
In the tariff era, Nordstrom’s low concentration of private labels is an asset because such brands have the “greatest exposure to China and fewer vendor partners to help shoulder the burden of increased costs due to tariffs,” Chen also said.
The take-private move is widely seen as an opportunity for Nordstrom to improve its operations outside the glare of its investors.
“The completion of this transaction is an important milestone in our nearly 125-year history,” Erik Nordstrom said in a statement. “As we embark on this new chapter, we remain focused on what matters most: providing outstanding service, offering the best merchandise, and ultimately, helping our customers feel good and look their best.”
