The owners of Berlin’s KaDeWe and several other retail chains say they have completed the takeover of British luxury department store chain Selfridges. This was shared by the companies Central from Thailand and Signa from Switzerland on Thursday in a statement. The chain has 17,000 employees worldwide. Both parties are said to hold 50 percent of the shares in the Selfridges Group. According to dpa information, the purchase price is four billion euros.
The takeover of the 18 stationary shops in three countries as well as the online business also includes several properties – in addition to the famous flagship department store on London’s Oxford Street, a building in Manchester and others in Ireland.
Since 2003, Selfridges has been in the hands of the Canadian entrepreneurial family Weston. Now the chain is part of a huge department store group: Central and Signa, in addition to the KaDeWe Group, own several other chains in Europe, including Illum in Denmark, Rinascente in Italy and Globus in Switzerland.
Stefano Della Valle, European head of the department store group, will also head the Selfridges group in the future. Anne Pitcher, who has done this so far, is to remain on the management team until the end of the year.