John Lewis Partnership is in talks to open a string of department stores across the Middle East.
The UK ’s best-known department store chain is in the final stages of agreeing a deal to partner one of the largest developers in the Middle East , Dubai-based Al-Futtaim Group Real Estate.
The partnership will enable the pair to open several stores across the Middle East, including in Egypt , from 2012.
The deal, which is expected to be concluded before Christmas, will give JLP access to a number of high-profile developments across the region, including Al-Futtaim’s 56m sq ft Dubai Festival City , which opened in 2007, and the 32m sq ft Cairo Festival City (pictured), which is scheduled to open in 2012.
JLP is already present in the Middle East through its supermarket offering, Waitrose. The partnership opened the first Waitrose in Dubai in November 2008 and followed this with a second last year. It opened a third supermarket in the region, in Bahrain , in June this year.
Although several UK retailers have made moves into the Middle East over the past few years, JLP’s plans mark the first time that a UK department store operator has embarked on such an expansion.
Last February, JLP was forced to scale back its department store expansion plans in the UK as the development pipeline dried up. It had hoped to open 10 new stores across the country by 2014.
A new 230,000 sq ft store at the Northern Quarter project in Portsmouth , Hampshire, had been scheduled to open this year, but work on the scheme has been on hold since the beginning of the credit crunch.
A spokesman for JLP said: “John Lewis is always looking at new opportunities for expansion and growth. However, we have no news on international development plans.”
Al-Futtaim declined to comment.
noella.piokivlehan@estatesgazette.com
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