Men’s Wearhouse Makes $55 A Share Offer For Jos. A Banks

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The courtship between The Men’s Wearhouse, Inc. (NYSE:MW) and Jos. A. Bank Clothiers (NASDAQ:JOSB) continues this morning with a bid from Men’s Wearhouse. The company’s stock surged in premarket trading, climbing more than 8% after the announcement. Shares of Jos. A. Bank also surged, climbing more than 12% after the announcement was made via a press release.

Men’s Wearhouse bids $55 a share

The Men’s Wearhouse, Inc. (NYSE:MW) bid $55 a share in cash, which would imply an enterprise value of about $1.2 billion and represents a 45% premium over Jos. A. Bank’s “unaffected enterprise value” and a 32% premium over the company’s closing price on Oct. 8, which was the day before the company made a bid for Men’s Wearhouse.

Men’s Wearhouse said it will finance the transaction using debt financing and cash from its balance sheet. The company said the acquisition “will be substantially accretive” to its earnings in the first year after the deal closes.

Will Jos. A. Bank take the deal?

This offer comes about 11 days after Jos. A. Bank Clothiers (NASDAQ:JOSB) canceled its $2.3 billion bid for Men’s Wearhouse. Eminence Capital has been pushing for change at Men’s Wearhouse for the last few weeks, particularly after the retail chain rejected an offer from Jos A. Bank in October. The activist firm wrote to The Men’s Wearhouse, Inc. (NYSE:MW) on Nov. 7 and expressed disappointment that the company did not accept the offer from Jos. A. Bank, which was worth $48 a share.

Eminence did say it agreed that the offer undervalued Men’s Wearhouse, but the firm also said it believed the two retail chains should continue negotiations. Men’s Wearhouse didn’t even enter into discussions with Jos. A. Bank at the time of its original offer, and that’s why Jos. A. Bank canceled its bid.

It will be interesting to see if Jos. A. Bank will accept the offer now that the tables have turned.

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