Selfridges sells to Thai retail giant for £4bn.

The British retailer has 25 stores, including a large flagship store on Oxford Street in London and stores in Dublin, the Netherlands, and Canada. The owners of Selfridges, the Weston family, the owners of Selfridges have been negotiating terms of the sale with Central Group for the past few days, which first announced the deal.

Selfridges was find in 1908 by American retail magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge. Billionaire Weston has owned it for 18 years. The Weston family started the chain in June, a few months after the death of Galen Weston, who oversaw the move of the privately-owned store in 2003.

The family controls Selfridges Wittington Investments Ltd, Canada, which is separate from the British subsidiary of the same name, which has a significant stake in Associated British Foods, owner of Primark.

Central Group is a family conglomerate that started in Bangkok but went global when the founder's son, Samrit Chirathiwat, opened Thailand's first department store in 1956. There are now 3,700 stores worldwide, from supermarkets to electronics and department stores in Europe.

Vittorio Radice, the non-managing partner of the Central Group, ran Selfridges between 1996 and 2003 and has run the department store in Italy since 2006. His duties include responsibility for expansion in Europe.

A division of the group, Central Retail, was confused about whether the sale of Selfridges had failed when it briefed the exchange it was "not currently involved in a deal."

It's not clear why the family decided to sell, although, like many retailers, the business is suffering from a blockade and a lack of upscale tourists in the city center. The company had nearly £2 billion in sales in the year to February 2020, but if newer accounts were released, there would likely be a sharp decline. Selfridges declined to comment, and the Central Group could not be reached.