Jones Seals Maxwell Deal

What's the difference between financially inadequate and financially adequate? If you're Maxwell Shoe (Nasdaq: MAXS  ) , the answer appears to be right about $11 million. That's the amount that separated a June 7 "no" from a June 18 "yes" with regard to Jones Apparel's (NYSE: JNY  ) unsolicited offer to buy the company. On Friday the companies ended nearly three months of bickering and sealed the deal.

The nitty-gritty of the deal is this: Maxwell agreed to sell to Jones for $23.25 per share in cash, valuing Maxwell at about $346 million. With about 14.8 million shares outstanding as of Maxwell's last quarterly filing, that's roughly $50 million more than Jones first proposed in February.

Now that the public drama appears to be over, market watchers are back to discussing the reasons Jones wanted Maxwell in the first place. They still make sense. First off, Maxwell is profitable, growing, and cash flow positive. Jones is decidedly acquisitive. Sounds like a match. Second, Jones owns the AK Anne Klein brand, licensing it to Maxwell for footwear while it handles apparel in-house. Now the whole brand is under one roof.

In the end, this looks like a situation where just about everybody wins. The companies are better positioned than they were before. Investors in both companies can relax -- and both stocks are higher than when all this started back in February, suggesting approval on both sides. And readers... well, readers don't have to read about this anymore.

Fool contributor Dave Marino-Nachison doesn't own any of the companies in this story.