Ann: Update on Specialty Fashion Group's Structural Review, page-5

THE private equity house that floated Dick Smith just two years before the electronics chain crashed and burned is wading deeper into retail, lobbing a takeover offer for two womenswear labels.
HARD QUESTIONS WILL BE ASKED OVER DICK SMITH FLOAT
SPECIALTY FASHION GROUP TO CLOSE 300 STORES
SPECIALTY FASHION CHIEF GARY PERLSTEIN HAS NO REGRETS ON RIVERS PLUNGE
Anchorage Capital Partners has offered to buy the City Chic and Autograph chains from Specialty Fashion Group for $100 million.
Anchorage is best known for reaping big profits by floating Dick Smith little more than a year after buying it — at a much higher value — in what one prominent wealth manager dubbed “the greatest private equity heist of all time”.
It has a presence in the nation’s retail market through its Brand Collective business, which owns the Volley, Grosby and Julius Marlow brands and operates the Shoe Warehouse chain of discount footwear stores. It also owns children’s footwear retailer Shoes & Sox.
Its bid for the City Chic and Autograph brands would take it into the Darwinian world of retail fashion beyond the shoe market for the first time.

Speciality Fashion Group chief and former Myer executive Daniel Bracken.
Speciality Fashion, which also owns Millers, Katies and Rivers and is undertaking a major restructure of its struggling businesses, revealed the offer yesterday.
But the group, led by former Myer executive Daniel Bracken, noted it was due to expire on Friday and said it did not expect to be able to work through a range of issues with Anchorage before then.
“Given this, the IRC (the Specialty Fashion board’s independent review committee) does not believe that agreement will be reached within the required time frame within the offer,” it said in a statement.
“The IRC continues to consider all options to improve shareholder value, including divestment of brands, whole-of-company options and a potential capital raising, and shareholders should note that there is no certainty that any proposal will result in a binding transaction.”
Specialty Fashion is in the process of closing more than 300 stores.
Anchorage paid $94 million for Dick Smith, buying it from Woolworths in 2012. The electronics chain was listed on the local bourse 13 months later with a value of $520 million.
Anchorage, which had kept a 20 per cent stake, sold out less than a year after the listing, taking its profit on Dick Smith to $370 million.
The Sydney-based private equity firm has long denied it juiced up Dick Smith before the float or was responsible for its eventual collapse, pointing out that the chain was debt free when it sold out, with almost $100 million in cash and receivables. It did not respond to media requests yesterday.
Shares in Specialty Fashion surged 8c, or 22.5 per cent, to 43.5c.