De Bijenkorf, along with the popular British department store Selfridges, will be in the hands of Thailand. This was confirmed by an internal source to Bloomberg News Agency after reports in the British media.
Central Group could not be reached for comment. De Bijenkorf refers to Selfridges, who does not want to comment. Selfridges is still owned by the Canadian Weston family. He’s been trying to sell Selfridges for a long time.
United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada
Selfridges is best known for its stores of the same name. Of these, four are in the United Kingdom, the most famous of which is the large department store in London. The group also has stores in Ireland and Canada.
And in the Netherlands, Selfridges has owned Bijenkorf since 2011. It has seven branches in our country.
KaDeWe and Rinascente
The Central Group is not yet well known in the Netherlands, but it is the largest department store chain in Thailand. It also owns well-known department stores in Europe, such as KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens) in Berlin and Rinascente stores in Italy.
In June, it was announced that the Weston family were considering selling Selfridges. Then various media reported that an unknown bidder would pay 4 billion pounds (4.6 billion euros) to the company.
Once with HEMA and V&D
De Bijenkorf was once listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, under the name KBB, which also included HEMA. In the late 1990s, KBB was acquired by Vendex, the company behind V&D, among other things.
Subsequently, Vendex KBB was acquired by a group of investors. Some parts, such as the V&D, went bankrupt, and others were sold, such as the Bijenkorf.
De Bijenkorf had 12 stores, but five closed in 2013. The company wanted to focus more on high net worth customers.
