The European Commission has cleared the sale of Britain’s Selfridges Group by Canada’s Weston family, the European Commission’s website says. The sale will see, among others, the British department store Selfridges and the Dutch de Bijenkorf, which belong to the retail group, integrated into the Thai Central Group and the European Signa Holding.
The takeover affects British Selfridges, Dutch de Bijenkorf and Irish department stores Arnotts and Brown Thomas. An agreement was reached last year whereby the Weston family would sell the group to Central Group and Signa Holding.
The European Commission came to the conclusion in its assessment procedure that “the proposed acquisition does not give rise to any competition concerns, since the activities of the companies involved, which are active in different geographic markets, only overlap to a small extent,” says the statement the European Commission.
Signa and Central Group acquire Selfridges
Thailand-based Central Group, owned for four generations by the Chirathivats, one of Asia’s wealthiest families, and Austrian Signa Holding have formed a joint venture to buy the retail group. According to a press release by the Austrian real estate group Signa from December last year, both companies will each receive a 50 percent stake in Selfridges.
The Selfridges Group will be part of the network of luxury department stores Central and Signa, which already includes the KaDeWe Group, Rinascente in Italy, Illum in Denmark and Globus in Switzerland.
The statement said the “acquisition creates one of the world’s leading omnichannel luxury department store groups.” The pro forma annual turnover for the combined department store portfolio amounts to 5 billion euros in 2019, according to the press release at the time. This amount is expected to exceed €7 billion by 2024.
The price for the acquisition was not disclosed.
This squat post previously appeared on FashionUnited.nl.