The Central Group increases its shares in the Selfridges Group and takes over the luxury department store operator.
The Thai trading group, which Selfridges shared 50 percent with the Austrian conglomerate Signa, is now the majority shareholder, the Central Group announced on Wednesday on the career network Linkedin. In doing so, the group has “consolidated its position as the owner and operator of the largest European luxury department store group”, which, in addition to the retailer of the same name, also includes De Bijenkorf in the Netherlands and Brown Thomas and Arnotts in Ireland.
The announcement came after the media reported last week that Signa was interested in selling the shares and that founder René Benko was withdrawing from the leadership of the ailing group.
Sign and Central only took over the Selfridges Group from the Canadian Weston family of entrepreneurs in mid-August 2022.