kohl’s corp stock soared 318 in monday trading to buck a highly negative market trend after the department store retailer confirmed that it had received buyout offer the wall street journal first reported talk of a takeover writing that a consortium backed by starboard value lp proposed a deal valued at 9 billion kohl’s confirmed receipt of an offer on monday and said the company “will determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interests of the company and its shareholders” investors may be upbeat about the offer but ubs analysts are skeptical it would happen as described the research group maintained its sell stock rating and 38 price target “the key is we believe it could be challenging for the investor group to get financing for two reasons 1 we doubt kohl’s real estate has enough value to serve as adequate collateral 2 we don’t believe an operational turnaround plan exists which will convince creditors to lend enough capital to make the deal happen” analysts led by jay sole wrote read kohl’s abercrombie  fitch canada goose downgraded with inflation expected to put fashion and retail under pressure in 2022 ubs estimates the average value of each of kohl’s 409 stores at 6 million to 8 million with few “hidden gems” in the bunch “ubs evidence lab data and our work suggest kohl’s owns few stores in highvalue real estate markets such as manhattan” the note said “we attach a 08 billion to 19 billion valuation to kohl’s distribution centers and headquarters importantly our 325 billion to 500 billion valuation is really only applicable to a saleleaseback strategy a hypothetical real estate developer buying a kohl’s asset in order to repurpose it would likely value the property at a 20 to 25 discount because of the numerous costs and challenges of repurposing retail real estate” analysts also think the retailer will continue to lose market share mostly to offprice retailers like tjx cos tjx  amazoncom inc amzn and other brands also under armour used the pandemic to make longlasting improvements to the business analysts say cowen analysts maintained their outperform stock rating and raised their price target to 75 from 73 “cowen gives 60 to 70plus likelihood of deal closing if financing is secured through a 3 billionplus sale leaseback a 2 billion of equity contribution and a 30x leverage ratio alternatively if a sale leaseback does not occur a deal may require a 40x leverage ratio holding the 2 billion equity contribution constant” analysts led by oliver chen wrote cowen thinks the retailer’s turnaround “is on the right track” citing the sephora partnership and other initiatives but results would take more time kohl’s released a comment to that effect on jan 18 following a statement from activist investor macellum advisors gp llc that said leadership is “materially mismanaging” the company “based on our performance in 2021 we are positioned to exceed our key 2023 financial goals two years ahead of plan” the letter said also noting the sephora partnership as well as a refreshed board and other initiatives “we remain confident in our future and have accelerated our share repurchase activity” want intel on all the news moving markets before the day starts sign up for our daily need to know newsletter the news sent shares of other department stores up during monday trading macy’s inc m shares rose 696 and nordstrom inc jwn was up 28 macy’s has faced its own activist investor pressure with activist investors jana partners llc encouraging the company spin off its ecommerce business cowen analysts have estimated the enterprise value of that business at 115 billion kohl’s stock has run up 365 over the last year while the sp 500 index spx has gained 102 for the period