Activist Investor Urges Dillard’s To Sell Off Its Real Estate

Add Dillard’s to the list of retailers with activist investors in their midst pushing for big changes. Snow Park Capital Partners has taken a 2 percent stake in the department store retailer’s Class A stock and wants the company to sell off owned real estate property, Bloomberg reports. Dillard’s and Snow Park did not return requests for comment from Retail Dive. “Dillard’s is essentially an under-leveraged real estate company that is masquerading as a low productivity retailer,” Snow Park Managing Partner Jeffrey Pierce told Bloomberg in an email. “We believe the value of Dillard’s vast real estate holdings is well north of $200 per share. … In fact, our estimated rental value to more productive retail tenants exceeds the company’s entire current income as a retailer.” Dillard’s beat analyst expectations and cleared some of the gloom around department store retail in May when it reported first quarter net income of $66.3 million. However, its net sales and same-store sales both fell by around 4 percent. Read more at Retail Dive.