Selfridges, owner of Dutch department store De Bijenkorf, taken over by Thai-Austrian group
The Weston family has sold off their storied British retail business, Selfridges & Co., which has owned De Bijenkorf in the Netherlands since 2011. The Weston family sold Selfridges & Co. to the Central Group and Signa Holding. A statement about the deal was released late Thursday night.
Central Group is a Thai company owned by the Chirathivat family, among the wealthiest in Asia worth $12.9 billion. They share a 50-50 stake with Signa, one of Austria’s largest real estate holding companies. The group already owns Rinascente in Italy, and KaDeWe, the better known name of Kaufhaus des Westens, in Austria and Germany. The two businesses also share ownership of Illum In Denmark and Swiss retailer Globus.
The value of the possible sale was rumored in June to be about 4 billion pounds (4.73 billion euros), according to reports in Bloomberg and The Guardian. A price was not officially disclosed by the parties involved. The Weston family did not sell off its Canadian retail business, Holt Renfrew.
When Selfridges acquired De Bijenkorf from Maxeda, the Dutch department store chain had 12 branches. That was later reduced to the seven stores in Amstelveen, Amsterdam, Eindhoven, The Hague, Maastricht, Rotterdam and Utrecht.
Founded in 1908 by Harry Gordon Selfridges, the British company is perhaps best known for its retail location on Oxford Street in London, and its sister stores in Birmingham and Manchester. It was taken over by the Weston family in 2003 in a deal worth 600 million pounds, and now includes Arnotts and Brown Thomas in Ireland.
