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. 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 comment on the identity of the bidder.
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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 deal for a group of assets that included Selfridges in the UK.
On the shop floor, trading has never been better, according to McDonald. And that’s in spite of 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 the year to the end of January 2024, McDonald says revenues will be up by more than 4 per cent and the group will be back in profit, having recorded a loss of €1.4 million a year earlier due to various once-off expenses.
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