The people who know him say it would have been more surprising if Albert R. Boscov had not come out of retail retirement to try to save his family's department store business from bankruptcy.

Rescues rank high on the 79-year-old's repertoire.

The Reading native has breathed new life into some of that city's most distressed neighborhoods. And from a shuttered factory near the heart of the downtown he has fashioned a cultural arts district. He is even credited with saving the 154-year-old Reading Fair.

Boscov has pulled off such feats with the same power of persuasion that reportedly is behind the plan announced Tuesday to buy back most of the assets of the financially stressed Boscov's Department Store L.L.C., and restore family control to the Reading company founded by Boscov's father 97 years ago.

"He has an insatiable appetite and ability to get money from people," said Mike Ehlerman, a longtime friend who serves on a number of Reading-area boards, including Sovereign Bank and Reading Hospital.

While details are few about the asset-purchase agreement that now awaits approval next Thursday by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin Gross, those familiar with the deal say it involves "substantially more equity" than the $11 million in cash offered by the Philadelphia private-equity firm Versa Capital Management Inc. Versa's bid was valued at more than $225 million and has since been withdrawn.

The new Boscov plan is said to involve fewer than a half-dozen local investors. They include Boscov and his brother-in-law Edwin Lakin, 85, neither of whom could be reached for comment yesterday.

In their leadership roles at the company before retiring in early 2006, they were considered a sublime pairing.

"The combination of Al Boscov and Ed Lakin is a match made in heaven," said Maryann Chelius Smith, who worked for Boscov's for 50 years, most recently as director of public relations before leaving in 2000. She now oversees another company owned by both men, the Boscov's Fairgrounds Farmers Market.

Smith said Boscov was always the "rah-rah guy, the one visible to the public, the customers." Lakin, she said, was a behind-the-scenes "money guy" who kept "the company solvent."

"Both of them are equally responsible for the success" the department store chain knew for years, Smith said.

That was before the economy went into a slide and shoppers put a lid on spending.

In a prepared statement, Boscov's chairman and chief executive officer, Ken Lakin, lauded the rescue plan now being pushed by his father and uncle as one that "maximizes the value of our business and the return to our creditors."

According to those who talked with Boscov in recent weeks, he had even more on his mind. He wanted to throw a lifeline to all on the company's payroll - and to the area businesses that benefit from those paychecks.

"He said there are 6,000 employees that this matters to," said Judith Schwank, a former Berks County commissioner who is now president of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, a smart-growth advocacy group. "He was very concerned not only about employees, but about the local economy."

Schwank visited Boscov two weeks ago, when she came looking for his help for a fund-raiser for the local Jewish Federation chapter. That's when he let loose about his plan to get involved again with the family business - the nation's oldest family-owned department store chain.

That he has been able to find investors to join in his plan was of no surprise to Schwank, who has marveled at Boscov's coaxing abilities for years.

"You get a call from Albert Boscov asking you to contribute, it's hard to turn down," Schwank said. "He's got that kind of magnetism that brings people forward."

The Boscov's chain now consists of 39 stores that generate $1 billion in annual revenue. Ten were cut after the company filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on Aug. 4.

Among those hoping Boscov will win over the court with his buyback plan is a man who was once his rival - Frank Strawbridge, whose great-grandfather founded in 1861 what grew into another landmark department store chain: Strawbridge & Clothier. The Strawbridge family sold out to the St. Louis-based May Department Stores Co. in 1996.

Describing Boscov as "a great fiery person and a good competitor," Strawbridge added: "If any family department store business can succeed in this effort, it would be Boscov's. They're very good at what they do."