THE Chinese owner of House of Fraser plans to sell its majority stake in the troubled department store chain, adding to the upheaval on the UK’s shopping streets.

Nanjing Xinjiekou Department Store Co. is selling a 51-percent stake to tourism development company Wuji Wenhua, according to a Chinese stock exchange filing Tuesday.

Nanjing Xinjiekou is a subsidiary of private business conglomerate Sanpower Group, which bought an 89-percent stake in House of Fraser in 2014 for 480 million pounds (US$667.5 million), a record for Chinese investment in foreign retail.

In 2013, House of Fraser opened its first overseas branch, in Abu Dhabi’s World Trade Center Mall. After several delays, its first China branch was opened in Nanjing in December 2016, when Sanpower chairman Yuan Yafei announced plans to add a further 50 Chinese stores under the name “Oriental Fraser. ”

However, with its own department-store business under pressure, Sanpower has opened only one House of Fraser in China.

The company has also pivoted Nanjing Xinjiekou’s business toward healthcare. The conglomerate acquired China Cord Blood in 2015 for US$1.4 billion and Dendreon Pharmaceuticals last year for about US$820 million in cash.

House of Fraser has also struggled with a challenging retail environment in the United Kingdom, where bricks-and-mortar retailers have been hit by the rise of online shopping.

In January, House of Fraser reported disappointing Christmas sales, down 2.9 percent on the previous year. That news came after ratings agency Moody’s had, in early December, already downgraded House of Fraser’s credit rating due to “weak results in the first three quarters of its fiscal year.”

(Xinhua)