Selfridges to be auctioned off with £4bn starting price | Retail industry

The family owners of Selfridges are kicking off an auction for the luxury department store, and have put a £4bn price tag on the business.

The Weston family, one of Canada’s richest families, first admitted that it might consider a sale of its European department store assets last month after an approach from a mystery buyer.

The approach came just weeks after the death of the 80-year-old head of the family, W Galen Weston, who had spearheaded the purchase of Selfridges for £628m in 2003.

Now the family has appointed advisers from Credit Suisse to oversee an auction and intends to send out sale documents to an elite group of potential buyers in the next few weeks.

The assets up for grabs include Selfridges’ four stores in the UK – in London, Manchester and Birmingham – as well as Brown Thomas and Arnotts in Ireland and De Bijenkorf in the Netherlands.

A sale would be the latest…