Brookfield Property Partners L.P. and Simon Property Group, Inc. entered into letter of intent to acquire all of retail and operating assets of J. C. Penney Company, Inc. (OTCPK:JCPN.Q) for $800 million.
The transaction is expected to save 70,000 jobs and 650 stores of J. C. Penney. J. C. Penney will seek approval from Bankruptcy Court in early October 2020. The transaction is subject to definitive documentation that must be agreed upon by all parties, the waiting period (and any extension thereof), or any necessary approval, as applicable, related to such Transaction under the HSR Act or under the Foreign Competition Laws having been terminated, the Bankruptcy Court shall have entered the Sale Order and other closing conditions. The transaction has been filed for approval in the EU. The parties approached the European Commission on October 5. The regulator has set November 10 as a provisional deadline for a ruling. As of October 22, 2020, Federal Trade Commission granted an early termination notice of antitrust approval waiting period. As of October 28, 2020, the transaction got approval from the European Commission. As of November 9, 2020, Chief Judge David R. Jones of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas has approved the transaction. As of November 10, 2020, the transaction remains subject to additional closing conditions. The closing is expected to occur on October 31, 2020. As per October 21, 2020, if court approval is received and the closing conditions in the asset purchase agreement are met, it is expected that the transaction will close in advance of the December 2020 holiday season. As of November 3, 2020, the closing of the transaction is expected to occur on or before November 20, 2020. As of November 9, 2020, the transaction is expected to close in late November 2020.
Joshua A. Sussberg, Christopher J. Marcus, Tana Ryan, Steve Toth, Aisha Lavinier, Aparna Yenamandra and Justin C. Elliott of Kirkland & Ellis LLP acted as legal advisors and Lazard acted as financial advisor to J. C. Penney. AlixPartners LLP is serving as restructuring adviser to the company. Edward T. Ackerman, Brian S. Hermann, Andrew M. Parlen and Robert B. Schumer of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is serving as legal counsel to Brookfield and Simon. Otterbourg P.C., as counsel to the administrative agent for the Brookfield Property Partners and Simon Property Group's prepetition revolving credit facility. Milbank LLP, as counsel to the First Lien Group of certain first lien creditors; Cooley LLP, as co-counsel to the Committee; Michael D. Sirota, Seth Van Aalten and Justin R. Alberto of Cole Schotz P.C., as co-counsel to the creditors committee. BRG Capital Advisors, LLC is serving as financial adviser to Simon and Brookfield.