NEW YORK » Collective Brands Inc., which owns the shoe store chains Payless and Stride Rite, is being acquired for about $1.32 billion.

Collective, which has been looking for a buyer since August, has agreed to an offer from a group including Hush Puppies’ Rockford, Mich.-based owner Wolverine Worldwide Inc. and private investment firms Blum Capital Partners and Golden Gate Capital.

(Hawaii has 14 Payless ShoeSource stores — 10 on Oahu, two on Hawaii island and one each on Kauai and Maui — which are among some 3,500 Payless stores nationwide. The stores account for 78 percent of the parent company’s revenue, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.)

The transaction will split Payless and the company’s brand development and licensing arm into a separate company.

The group will pay $21.75 for each Collective Brands share. That is a 5 percent premium to Collective Brands’ closing price of $20.77 on Monday.

The Topeka, Kan.-based company has about 60.8 million outstanding shares, according to FactSet. The companies valued the deal at about $2 billion including debt.

Collective Brands shares gained 39 cents, or 1.9 percent, to close at $21.16 Tuesday after hitting a 52-week high of $21.34 earlier in the session.