The Canadian-British owners of the Bijenkorf want to sell the department store chain. Writing that British media. The Bijenkorf would be for sale together with the British Selfridges and two Irish department stores for four billion pounds. In the coming weeks there will be an auction where a select group of interested parties can make an offer.
Due to corona measures, the department stores have had a difficult year and a half. According to The Guardian newspaper, the owners are no longer convinced to continue. It concerns the Weston family, one of the wealthiest families in Canada. Earlier this year, 80-year-old Galen Weston passed away. He built the retail empire that falls under the Selfridges Group.
De Bijenkorf has seven branches: in Amstelveen, Amsterdam, The Hague, Eindhoven, Maastricht, Rotterdam and Utrecht.
High-end luxeartikelen
Whether a sale will also be noticeable in the store “depends entirely on who it will be,” says retail expert Kitty Koelemeijer of Nyenrode University. The current owners, for example, stopped the Drie Dwaze Dagen clearance sale in 2016. “They didn’t think that fit with the look of luxury department stores.”
Another example is British department store Harrods, which was acquired by Qatar’s national investment fund in 2010. “There is a strong focus on high-end luxury items,” says Koelemeijer.
Thailand, China, Middle East
Various names are being circulated as possible buyers of the Bijenkorf. That is the name of the Central Retail group from Thailand, which already has several European luxury department stores in its portfolio. There are also said to be several Chinese government-backed companies and investment funds from the Middle East in the market.
De Bijenkorf refers the owner of the Selfridges Group for a response, but he has not said anything about it yet.
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