(Reuters) - The founding family of Mervyn's LLC agreed to purchase the defunct retailer's name and all its Internet-related intellectual properties, the Wall Street Journal said.
John Morris, the son of the department store chain's founder, Mervin Morris, along with his two brothers Jeff and Jim, agreed to the purchase, in a sale that closed on Tuesday afternoon, the paper said.
"It's great to have it back in our family after 31 years," the paper quoted John Morris as saying.
"We strongly believe we have a very strong, loyal base of families in the Western states that would support Mervyn's," Morris, a principal of Morris Management, a private-equity and real-estate investment company, told the paper.
Four other parties secured most of Mervyn's house-brand portfolio at a bankruptcy auction, the paper said, citing Gabe Fried, founder of Streambank, a boutique intellectual property consultancy firm retained for the sale.
Fried declined to name the total purchase price or the other four entities, according to the paper.
The brand portfolio purchased by the four entities includes three of Mervyn's best-selling brands: casual sportswear line High Sierra, women's fashion line Hillard & Hanson and young women's apparel line ellemenno, Fried told the paper.
Mervyn's filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July last year and in October said it would liquidate after the holiday season after exhausting options that would allow it to stay open.
The privately held company operated 177 stores at the time of its bankruptcy filing.
(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Valerie Lee)
