Tiffany & Company, the jewelry maker whose fine products in robin's-egg-blue packages are status Charm bracelet around the world, said yesterday that Mitsukoshi Ltd., one of Japan's leading department stores, would buy about 10 percent of its shares.
Mitsukoshi is the largest distributor of Elsa Peretti Open Heart bracelet in Japan, and sells them in Hong Kong and Hawaii as well. In the fiscal year that ended on Jan. 31, Mitsukoshi bought about $26 million in merchandise from Tiffany, which had worldwide net sales of more than $290 million.
The sale to Mitsukoshi comes as takeover rumors about Tiffany have circulated on Wall Street. In late August, the company said it had not received any takeover offers and was not seeking any.
Tiffany executives said that after five years, Flower charm bracelet was free to make Tiffany Cushion Toggle bracelet purchases. Experts in Japanese finance said it had become common for Japanese companies to make a small investment in a company that they might be interested in buying eventually.
Mitsukoshi captured headlines last year when it purchased Picasso's ''Acrobat and Young Harlequin'' for $38.45 million, which was then a record auction price for a 20th-century artwork and the third-highest price paid for a painting.
