Talbots evaluating higher sycamore bid after December rejection

Talbots Inc. said it’s considering an approximately $215 million offer from Sycamore Partners, less than five months after the women’s apparel maker rejected a lower bid from the private-equity firm as inadequate.

Sycamore is offering to purchase all of the company’s outstanding stock at $3.05 per share, up from a December bid of $3, Hingham, Massachusetts-based Talbots said today in a statement. The new offer is 9.7 percent higher than the shares’ May 4 closing price of $2.78. Talbots rose 1.1 percent to $2.81 at 9:30 a.m. in New York.

Talbots said it entered an exclusivity agreement with Sycamore tied to the non-binding proposal, which will terminate on May 15. The apparel maker, which rejected the private-equity firm’s December bid as “substantially” undervaluing Talbots, said in January that it had agreed to share confidential information with Sycamore tied to a “possible business combination.”

Talbots’s board “continues to evaluate strategic alternatives, including Sycamore Partners’ proposal, consistent with its fiduciary duties to act in the best interest of the company’s stockholders,” the company said in today’s statement. Talbots won’t comment further “unless a specific transaction is recommended by the board.”

Talbots rose 4.5 percent this year through May 4.