Federated Department Stores Inc. has given Peter Lytle and his Business Development Group additional time to pull together financing to purchase Fingerhut Cos. Inc.
Meanwhile, former Fingerhut CEO Ted Deikel waits in the wings.
“We met with [Business Development Group] yesterday and as a result of that meeting, agreed to give them more time to do their due diligence and look for funding,” said Federated spokesperson Carol Sanger.
How much longer? “Probably another two weeks,” she said.
In mid-February, the Business Development Group, Wayzata, MN, signed a letter of intent to purchase the beleaguered catalog subsidiary. “We believe it is viable and worth financing from what we’ve seen, but we have other things to look at,” Lytle’s business partner, Marshall Masko, told DIRECT Newsline last month.
Masko said then that the group expected to move very fast on the deal. The letter hinged on the Business Development Group finding financing by March 8.
In another development, Deikel complained to the Twin Cities press that Federated hasn’t yet responded to his group’s proposal to place a bid if the Lytle deal doesn’t go through. Deikel is a business partner of Eden Prairie wholesaler Tom Petters, an early suitor.
“We will push on that a little bit,” Deikel told the St. Cloud Times. “We’re not just going to go sleep and forget about it.”
Federated considers the Deikel/Petters proposal a back-up plan, not an offer, Sanger said. “There is no offer,” she said.
Fingerhut is based in Minnetonka, MN.
