Nordstrom’s Brush With Junk Proved a Turning Point
- Retailer now repairing tarnished status with debt deal
- Debt refinancing protects real estate from lender claims
Women's clothing is displayed for sale inside a Nordstrom Rack store ahead of the grand opening in the Herald Square neighborhood of New York.
Photographer: Caitlin Ochs/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Nordstrom Inc. was so desperate for cash when the pandemic took hold last year that it mortgaged prized assets and took on high-cost debt once reserved for some of the riskiest companies.
Now, thanks to the red-hot corporate bond market and borrowing costs that remain near some of the cheapest ever, the luxury department store chain is beginning to dig out of a hole that pushed one of its credit ratings into junk and threatened to snowball into a cash crisis. Analysts say Nordstrom’s debt sale this week is an important step on its long road back to full blue-chip status in the debt markets.