British retailer House of Fraser posted narrower first-half losses on improved gross margins on Wednesday and announced a new partnership deal with Barclaycard to manage its customer account cards.
House of Fraser is due to take a unit in Dundrum Shopping Centre in Dublin next spring, employing 400 people in its first non-UK opening of a store.
The department stores operator said Barclays' credit card unit would pay around £25 million (€36.5 million) to manage its financial services business, including store cards, for 10 years from June 2007.
A first payment of £6 million is due in January 2005, with a further performance-related payment due in 2008.
From 2007, all profits from the joint venture would be shared equally, opening up a completely new profit stream for shareholders, chief executive Mr John Coleman said.
Subject to perennial bid speculation, takeover hopes at the department store were dashed earlier this month when Scottish businessman Mr Tom Hunter and Icelandic retailer Baugur sold their stakes in one of Britain's last remaining listed department store groups.
Nearly a third of UK adults own retail store cards - credit cards issued by retailers which are often combined with a customer loyalty scheme.
However, interest rates are higher than average credit cards and face investigation by the UK consumer watchdog.
Meanwhile, the company reported pre-tax losses before exceptional items narrowed to £2.5 million in the six months to the end of July, down from £3.9 million in the same period last year.
Like-for-like sales in the period were flat, but gross margins grew by half a percentage point.
In the first eight weeks of its seasonally stronger second half, when it makes around 30 per cent of its turnover in the run-up to Christmas, same-store sales are up 1.3 per c ent and gross margins are estimated to be up by over 0.30 of a percentage point.
