The Austrian conglomerate Signa is investing its partner Central Group in the property of the Berlin luxury department store KaDeWe. The company announced on Monday that the Thai retail group will acquire 49.9 percent of the building on Tauentzienstrasse. However, the relevant antitrust authorities still have to approve the transaction. Financial details were not released.
With the deal, the two groups are deepening their close cooperation in European retail, which has existed for years. Central has a 50.1 percent stake in the KaDeWe Group, which operates the Berlin department store as well as the Oberpollinger in Munich and the Alsterhaus in Hamburg, and Signa the remaining 49.9 percent. The portfolio is to be expanded in the coming years to include the Carsch-Haus in Düsseldorf and the “Lamarr” in Vienna. In 2020, Signa and Central also acquired the Swiss department store chain Magazine zum Globus AG. Through the takeovers of Selfridges, De Bijenkorf and Brown Thomas Arnotts, the two companies now have what they say is “the largest luxury department store group in the world”.
According to Signa, the sale of the shares in the KaDeWe building to Central is now the “logical consequence” of the business model. “The essence of this partnership is, on the one hand, to run the operational business together and, on the other hand, to be joint owners of the main trophy properties and to develop them further,” the company explained in a statement. The two partners “already jointly owned absolute trophy assets such as the famous Selfridges property on Oxford Street in London” and “as property owners also shared properties in Dublin, Manchester, Zurich, Bern and Basel” as well as the two currently under construction future KaDeWe Group locations in Düsseldorf and Vienna.