Nike-Lululemon Rumor 'Probably A Long That Wants To Get Out'

• Around 11:00 a.m. ET, there was some unconfirmed market chatter about Nike Inc (NYSE: NKE) having made a $60 per share bid to acquire Lululemon Athletica inc. (NASDAQ: LULU).
• Kristin Bentz, President of Talented Blonde LLC, commented on the rumor.
• Shares of Nike were down about 1.6 percent on Tuesday, while shares of Lululemon were almost flat.

When asked about the Nike-Lululemon rumor, Bentz told Benzinga that, "there was a little chatter around 11:00 a.m. ET vis a vis Nike." However, none of the firm's analysts heard about the Lululemon rumor. Bentz said it's "probably a long that wants to get his position out there."

Related Link: Lululemon Has Momentum, MKM Says

Bentz continued, "Seems like Lululemon is trading flat right now and Nike is down $2. Now, in my opinion acquiring Lululemon would be clever on Nike’s part. They have the economies of scale to really blow out the brand, plus with all the high fashion capsules they have launched (e.g. Chitose Abe) they could really give Lululemon the critical fashion shot in the arm that it needs. It’s so close—but still is lacking a high tech high fashion look like Stellah McCartney for Adidas, Alexander Wang for H&M, etc."

Bentz then went into the teen/tween Generation Z concept Lululemon has in Ivivva, which she thinks "would really round out Nike youth nicely." But, she added, "will the cult-like Lululemon consumer buy it?"

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.