Accounts just filed for Brown Thomas Arnotts highlight how the Irish department store retailer could have changed hands for the second time in a year.
In August 2023, an “unsolicited bid” from a third party was received to acquire the trading business and its five freehold properties – Arnotts on Henry Street and the Brown Thomas stores on Grafton Street in Dublin and in Cork, Limerick and Galway.
A “short due diligence process” was facilitated but ultimately came to nothing. In an interview with The Irish Times, Brown Thomas Arnotts chief executive Donald McDonald confirmed that an approach had been received but declined to name the bidder.
“Essentially, there was an approach to the parent company to buy Brown Thomas Arnotts outright. They gave it consideration and decided not to sell. That’s now off the table,” he said.
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Brown Thomas Arnotts had only changed hands in August 2022, when Cambridge Retail Group Holding Ltd (a joint venture between Thai conglomerate Central Group and Signa Retail in Austria) bought the business from the family of the late Galen Weston as part of a wider £4 billion (€4.7 billion) deal for a group of assets that included the Selfridges department store in the UK.
Mr McDonald reiterated that the huge debt issues affecting its nearly 40 per cent shareholder, Signa, are having no impact on its trading. According to a report in the Financial Times, Signa Holding is in the process of trying to liquidate the assets over which it has direct control, including its shareholding in Selfridges, the immediate parent company of Brown Thomas Arnotts.
“We act independently of the shareholders, there is no involvement in the day-to-day operations of the business, there’s no impact,” he said.
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On the shop floor, trading has never been better, according to Mr McDonald. And that’s despite between €2 million and €3 million in revenue being lost in the aftermath of the Dublin riot, as shoppers stayed away from the city centre for a period.
For the year to the end of January 2024, Mr McDonald said revenues will be up by more than 4 per cent and the group will report a profit.
In the year to the end of January 2023, revenue rose by 26 per cent to €319 million. Mr McDonald said this was 20 per cent higher than in 2019, the last full year before Covid-19 lockdown restrictions took effect.
He said some of this uplift in income was due to the success of its Dundrum Towncentre store, which opened in February 2022 and a “sales surge” at its shops in Cork, Limerick and Galway. Tourists have also returned to its flagship Grafton Street luxury goods store, accounting for about 20 per cent of its sales.
“Every store we have is profitable,” he said. “And every store is up this year on last year with the exception of Arnotts, which is probably flat because of the impact of the riot. And we’re looking at a digital business that is trading at three times the level that was what it was in 2019.”
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