House of Fraser heads to China

The British chain of department stores has agreed to be taken over by Chinese conglomerate Sanpower.

House of Fraser, the 165-year-old chain of department stores, has agreed to be taken over by a Chinese conglomerate for £450m. Sanpower, a retail, technology and real estate group headed by multimillionaire Yuan Yafei, is to take an 89% stake in the chain. It marks China's biggest investment in a UK retailer.

But it emerged early this week that Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley, who has been eyeing up House of Fraser for some time, has prevented the Chinese taking full control by snapping up an 11% stake. He has reportedly failed to buy out other shareholders, however, and is thought to be willing to sell his stake to Sunpower.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.