The Thai group Central that since 2011 has been the owner of Italian department store chain La Rinascente bought the German Kadewe department store from the Signa property group. The company's objective is to renovate classic “iconic” shopping malls and make them more contemporary. Kadewe (acronym for Kaufhaus des Westens) is an historic Berlin department store inaugurated back in 1907.
Kadewe also encompasses Hamburg's Alsterhaus and Munich's Oberpollinger, two shopping malls founded at the start of the 20th century. Back in 2014 Signa, a property group that owns luxury real estate for a value of €6.5 billion, bought the majority of Kadewe.
Kadewe's repositioning towards the higher-end of the market started a few years back, but Central's entrance and its experience with La Rinascente group will accelerate such a process.