Stein Mart’s plan to go private has been derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The off-pricer retailer and Kingswood Capital Management have mutually agreed to terminate their merger agreement, announced in January, which would have taken Stein Mart private.
Stein Mart’s board directors on a special committee voted to terminate the merger agreement in response to “the unpredictable economic conditions resulting from the global health crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, uncertainty regarding Stein Mart’s ability to satisfy the conditions to closing, and the substantial expense to Stein Mart of soliciting shareholder approval for a transaction which is unlikely to close,” the company said in a press release.
“While we both believed in the benefits of the proposed transaction, we have mutually concluded after careful consideration that given the current environment and significant uncertainty, it would not be prudent to continue to pursue the transaction,” – Richard L. Sisisky, Stein Mart board member, and Alex Wolf, managing partner of Kingswood, in a joint statement.
