ven, 12 Avr 2024
The Central Group from Thailand has allegedly acquired the KaDeWe property in Berlin from the insolvent Signa Group for a reported €1 billion according to Handelsblatt.
The luxury department store KaDeWe in Berlin has changed hands, according to a report in the Handelsblatt. The Thai Central Group has bought the building for 1 billion euros from the insolvent Signa Group, the newspaper reported on Friday, citing “several people involved”.
Signa and Central are long-standing business partners; Central has held a majority stake in the department store operator since 2015 – but not yet in the property.
According to Handelsblatt, the Central Group had concluded an option to purchase half of the property in spring 2023. Signa had stated at the time that Central had purchased half of the building. Central has now taken over the entire KaDeWe property. According to the parties involved, the contracts were signed on Wednesday. The Central Group did not want to confirm this when asked by the newspaper.
The KaDeWe property belonged to the Signa subsidiary Prime Selection, which owns other high-quality buildings such as the Oberpollinger department store in Munich, the Alsterhaus in Hamburg and the Goldenes Quartier in Vienna.
The department store business, is operated by the KaDeWe Group. It had filed for insolvency at the end of January and explained this as a “possibility for a reorganisation”.
At the time, the company announced that 2022/2023 had been the strongest financial year in the company’s history in terms of sales. However, Signa’s “non-market” and “exorbitant” index-linked rents would make it “virtually impossible” to operate profitably in the long term.
The Central Group is owned by the family of Thai billionaire Tos Chirathivat. The company owns numerous shopping centers, electronics stores and supermarkets in Thailand and has also been active internationally for years.
In 2011, for example, the Central Group bought the Italian department store chain La Rinascente. In Switzerland, the Central Group holds a stake in the Globus department store chain together with Signa.
At Christmas 2021, the company took over the British department store chain Selfridges together with Signa. The Central Group is also in advanced negotiations to take over Signa’s shares in Selfridges, the Handelsblatt reported.
©Keystone/SDA
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