Thailand’s Central Group and Austrian real estate company Signa Group, which jointly own major department stores in Europe, said Thursday they had struck a deal for the chain, best known for its Oxford Stock Exchange London store.
The Canadian arm of the billionaire Weston family bought Selfridges for nearly £ 600 million in 2003.
Central Group, owned by billionaire Chirathivat family, and Signa, Austrian investor Ren Benko, together own department stores in Germany, Italy, Denmark and Switzerland.
Founded in 1908, the Selfridges group employs 10,000 people and has 25 stores around the world, particularly in major cities in England, Ireland, the Netherlands and Canada.
Signa and Central will take over 18 of the 25 stores and hope to build a luxury hotel next to the Oxford Stock Exchange flagship store, the source said, adding that seven department stores in Canada were not part of the offer.
With Selfridges, they hope to build an empire of luxury department stores, supplemented by an online business.
The source said they plan to boost sales to € 8 billion ($ 9.1 billion) by 2024 – including more than one billion online – from around 5 billion currently.
The conglomerate will be managed from a holding company located in London, with the possibility of a possible stock exchange listing, even if local management of stores in other countries will be maintained, the source said.
Central opened its first department store in 1956 and became Thailand’s largest shopping center owner with around 2,400 retail stores. It has an e-commerce joint venture with China’s JD.com and stakes in road transport company Grab Holdings in Southeast Asia.
Central has been present in Europe since 2011, when it acquired the chain of upscale Italian department stores La Rinascente SpA for 205 million euros. In 2013, it also acquired Illum, Denmark’s oldest department store.
In 2015, Central bought Signa a majority stake in three luxury department stores in Germany. Last year, Central and Signa together bought Swiss luxury store Globus and other assets for more than one billion Swiss francs ($ 1.1 billion).
Central and Signa have also teamed up with Japanese retail giant Aeon Co to develop an e-commerce platform for one of the world’s fastest growing online sports retail markets.
Benko has made a name for himself as a real estate investor. He purchased the iconic Chrysler Building New York in partnership with real estate company RFR Holding LLC for approximately $ 150 million in 2019.
($ 1 = 0.9202 Swiss francs)
($ 1 = 0.8830 euros)
($ 1 = 0.7453 pounds) (Reporting by Matthias Inverardi; Editing by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Hans Seidenstucker and Mark Potter)