Mervyn's shut dow last year and ran going-out-of-business sales but the brand could make a return. The Wall Street Journalreports that the son of founder Mervin Morris has purchased the Mervyn name along with its Internet-related intellectual properties.
John Morris, the son of the department store chain's founder, Mervin Morris, along with his two brothers Jeff and Jim, agreed to purchase the defunct retailer's moniker and all of its Internet-related intellectual properties, in a sale that closed Tuesday afternoon.
The goal is to put the Mervyn's name back on consumer's radar screens.
"It's great to have it back in our family after 31 years," said Morris, principal of Morris Management, a private equity and real estate investment company. "We strongly believe we have a very strong, loyal base of families in the Western states that would support Mervyn's."
While the Morris family took the moniker and the Internet-related intellectual properties, four other parties secured most of Mervyn's house brand portfolio at a bankruptcy auction, said Gabe Fried, founder of Streambank, a boutique intellectual property consultancy firm retained for the sale.
The information on the Mervyns.com site is still about the company going out of business but that could change if the Morris family decides to relaunch it as an online store.
