The new owner of department store group, House of Fraser is to invest up to £150m in the revamp of its 59 outlets in UK and Ireland. The firm also has one site in Abu Dhabi which opened last year.
The formal completion of the £480m sale of the 160-year-old company to Nanjing Xinjiekou Department Store Co, a leading chain of Chinese department stores, was completed last week.
Nanjing Cenbest is owned by Sanpower Group, a private Chinese conglomerate, operating across numerous industries including finance, retail, media and healthcare.
Nanjing will also invest in driving House of Fraser’s multichannel offer and IT infrastructure systems to improve its operational efficiency.
Online has been a big driver of House of Fraser’s sales growth over the past few years with sales via the channel soaring 41% in its full year to January 25.
House of Fraser has set a target to grow online sales from £300m per annum to £750m by 2017.