1 A consortium of private investors operating as LJH Funding Co. said it has made a $409 million cash bid for most of L.J. Hooker Corp. 's real-estate and shopping-center holdings.
2 The $409 million bid includes the assumption of an estimated $300 million in secured liabilities on those properties, according to those making the bid.
3 The group is led by Jay Shidler, chief executive officer of Shidler Investment Corp. in Honolulu, and A. Boyd Simpson, chief executive of the Atlanta-based Simpson Organization Inc. Mr. Shidler's company specializes in commercial real-estate investment and claims to have $1 billion in assets; Mr. Simpson is a developer and a former senior executive of L.J. Hooker.
4 'The assets are good, but they require more money and management' than can be provided in L.J. Hooker's current situation, said Mr. Simpson in an interview. 'Hooker's philosophy was to build and sell.
5 We want to build and hold.'
6 L.J. Hooker, based in Atlanta, is operating with protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
7 Its parent company, Hooker Corp. of Sydney, Australia, is currently being managed by a court-appointed provisional liquidator.
8 Sanford Sigoloff, chief executive of L.J. Hooker, said yesterday in a statement that he has not yet seen the bid but that he would review it and bring it to the attention of the creditors committee.
9 The $409 million bid is estimated by Mr. Simpson as representing 75% of the value of all Hooker real-estate holdings in the U.S.
10 Not included in the bid are Bonwit Teller or B. Altman & Co., L.J. Hooker's department-store chains.
11 The offer covers the massive 1.8 million-square-foot Forest Fair Mall in Cincinnati, the 800,000 square-foot Richland Fashion Mall in Columbia, S.C., and the 700,000 square-foot Thornton Town Center mall in Thornton, Colo.
12 The Thornton mall opened Sept. 19 with a Bigg's hypermarket as its anchor; the Columbia mall is expected to open Nov. 15.
13 Other Hooker properties included are a 20-story office tower in midtown Atlanta, expected to be completed next February; vacant land sites in Florida and Ohio; L.J. Hooker International, the commercial real-estate brokerage company that once did business as Merrill Lynch Commercial Real Estate, plus other shopping centers.
14 The consortium was put together by Hoare Govett, the London-based investment banking company that is a subsidiary of Security Pacific Corp. 'We don't anticipate any problems in raising the funding for the bid,' said Allan Campbell, the head of mergers and acquisitions at Hoare Govett, in an interview.
15 Hoare Govett is acting as the consortium's investment bankers.
16 According to people familiar with the consortium, the bid was code-named Project Klute, a reference to the film 'Klute' in which a prostitute played by actress Jane Fonda is saved from a psychotic businessman by a police officer named John Klute.
17 L.J. Hooker was a small home-building company based in Atlanta in 1979 when Mr. Simpson was hired to push it into commercial development.
18 The company grew modestly until 1986, when a majority position in Hooker Corp. was acquired by Australian developer George Herscu, currently Hooker's chairman.
19 Mr. Herscu proceeded to launch an ambitious, but ill-fated, $1 billion acquisition binge that included Bonwit Teller and B. Altman & Co., as well as majority positions in Merksamer Jewelers, a Sacramento chain; Sakowitz Inc., the Houston-based retailer, and Parisian Inc., the Southeast department-store chain.
20 Eventually Mr. Simpson and Mr. Herscu had a falling out over the direction of the company, and Mr. Simpson said he resigned in 1988.
21 Since then, Hooker Corp. has sold its interest in the Parisian chain back to Parisian's management and is currently attempting to sell the B. Altman & Co. chain.
22 In addition, Robert Sakowitz, chief executive of the Sakowitz chain, is seeking funds to buy out the Hooker interest in his company.
23 The Merksamer chain is currently being offered for sale by First Boston Corp.
24 Reached in Honolulu, Mr. Shidler said that he believes the various Hooker malls can become profitable with new management. 'These aren't mature assets, but they have the potential to be so,' said Mr. Shidler. 'Managed properly, and with a long-term outlook, these can become investment-grade quality properties.'

The $ 409 million bid includes the assumption of an estimated $ 300 million in secured liabilities on those properties , according to those making the bid .
those making the bid
Who else made bids on the properties?