DUESSELDORF (Reuters) – Thai retailer Central Group has bought the landmark KaDeWe property in Germany from the insolvent Austrian company Signa Group, two industry sources told Reuters on Friday.
Central could also take over the entire KaDeWe Group, which includes Alsterhaus in Hamburg, and Oberpollinger in Munich.
The Thai retailer already holds a 50.1% majority stake in the group.
Central and the insolvent Signa Prime, which owns shares in the luxury department stores, declined to comment.
The purchase price for the building, a landmark tourist destination in Berlin, was reported by the German business daily Handelsblatt at roughly 1 billion euros ($1.07 billion).
Signa, the property empire founded by tycoon Rene Benko, has been one of the biggest casualties of Europe’s real estate crisis, with creditors filing claims worth billions of euros.
The group’s holding company, which sits at the centre of a web of hundreds of firms, has declared insolvency, as have its two most important units, Signa Prime and Signa Development.
($1 = 0.9369 euros)
(Reporting by Matthias Inverardi, Chayut Setboonsarng and Francois Murphy, Writing by Miranda Murray, Editing by Friederike Heine)
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