French department store retailer Galeries Lafayette (Paris) has entered into a joint venture with investment holding company I.T Limited (Hong Kong) to open Galeries Lafayette department stores in Greater China, according to Women’s Wear Daily.
The retailer will make its debut in Beijing in a 194,000-square-foot location in the city’s Xidan commercial district. It will be Galeries Lafayette’s first directly managed department store in Asia, the company said.
Both firms, which originally signed a letter of intent in December 2007, will own a 50 percent stake in the venture.
Additional locations are planned in more than a dozen other cities, including Shanghai, Chengdu, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Xian and Shenzhen, reports WWD.
Galeries Lafayette operates 61 department stores worldwide, while I.T operates more than 350 stores in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.