The private equity firm Sycamore Partners is closing in on a deal to buy the apparel company Jones Group for $15 a share, according to people briefed on the matter.
A deal could be announced on Wednesday that would value the company at $1.2 billion. Its brands including Nine West, Anne Klein and Stuart Weitzman.
But people familiar with the process said the deal could still fall apart, even at the last minute. In midmorning trading, shares in the Jones Group were down 1 percent, at $14.46.
The Jones Group put itself up for sale this summer after the activist hedge fund Barington Capital Group bought about 2 percent of the company and began agitating for disposals of some of its brands. But instead of selling the brands individually, the company opted for a sale process after several private equity firms expressed interest.
The $15 a share price is about 11 percent above the stock’s price before news of a possible deal leaked in November. But it would still be below the nearly $18 a share the stock was trading at earlier this year, and its record high of more than $40 a share.
The private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts considered participating in the buyout, but is still expected to provide financing through MerchCap Solutions, a merchant bank it runs as a joint venture with Stone Point Capital.
All parties involved declined to comment.
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: December 18, 2013
An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of a hedge fund. It is the Barington Capital Group, not the Barrington Capital Group.
