Despite the high price of gas, department stores remain the eye of dealmakers as Federated Department Stores continues to castoff parts of last year's acquisition, May Department Stores. Yesterday, Federated CEO Terry Lundgren reported that the retailer best known for its Macy's and Bloomingdale's chains has succesfully unloaded 56 of the 80 overlapping locations to mall managers Simon, Macerich and others. In addition, he reported that the Lord & Taylor auction has received strong interest from private equity firms and real estate investment trusts with bids ranging from $1.0 billion to $1.3 billion. Last year, buyout firms Texas Pacific Group and Warburg Pincus scarfed up Neiman Marcus prompting other buyout firms to seek out possible targets in the industry including Bain Capital's buyout of low-end department store Burlington Coat Factory and Apollo's buyout of Linens 'N Things. Although Lundgren did not mention any strategic bidders for the L&T chain, in seperate news, rival Nordstrom's president Blake Nordstrom told analysts that the Seattle-based retailer is seriously considering a bid for L&T's Fifth Avenue flagship location. —Matthew Wurtzel
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