Regulatory Constrained Portfolio Restructuring: The US Department Store Industry in the 1990s

Abstract

The US department store industry has undergone a recent round of strategic acquisition-based portfolio restructuring. The author analyses one such acquisition, studying how its geography was restructured in the premerger stage to conform to the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC's) ‘fix-it-first’ policy and to improve the strategic fit of the transaction. He then investigates evidence, and analyses the effects, of a new era of stricter FTC enforcement, where divestiture may no longer be sufficient in cases of horizontal market overlap. Fundamentally, the author considers the nature of ‘real regulation’ in action, as rules partially dictate investment decisions.