Target and Macy's on the Buyout Block?

It might be because of its extensive real estate portfolio. That was one of the catalysts on the Hilton Hotels buyout earlier this week. They get to use that real estate portfolio as leverage to help in the buyout. Here is what that article says about Macys and Target:

Big retailers Macy's Inc. and Target Corp. -- whose shares
were each up about 5 percent late on Friday -- may be attractive buyout targets
due to the embedded value of their real estate. Such deals would be similar to
the 2005 buyout of Toys 'R' Us, which leveraged off its properties for
financing.

It would be interesting to see how much Target's real estate portfolio is actually worth. It says their property plant and equipment is valued at $21 billion. However it is hard to tell what properties they actually own though. In any case that number could make that $57 billion purchase price go down a little easier for the private equity buyer.

There might be something up though because call volume is almost double put volume from the 62.50 to the 75.00 strikes. It is kind of similar to what was happening before the Hilton Hotels deal. However the Hilton deal had some straddle action though because there were quite a few puts bought as well. Maybe people weren't so sure of the Hilton deals numbers (because they were on vacation or getting ready to go because of that short trading day.)

Some people are also talking insider trading on that Hilton deal as well. Maybe some of the same things are in the air on a potential Taget deal as well.