Takashimaya Co, a leading Japanese retailer, has decided to sell its stake in a jointly owned department store in Taipei to its partner as a way of withdrawing from the Taiwan retail market, the department store said yesterday.
Takashimaya is to sell its 50 percent stake in the Dayeh Takashimaya Department Store (大葉高島屋百貨) in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) to Dayeh Group (大葉集團), which owns the other half.
The stake is to be sold at a price of NT$492 million (US$15.04 million), according to local media reports.
In 1994, Takashimaya and Dayeh teamed up to open the department store in the affluent Tianmu (天母) neighborhood, where many expatriates live.
The store once generated annual revenue of NT$5.8 billion, but has been encountering stiff competition in the Tianmu area since the Pacific Sogo Department Store (太平洋崇光百貨) and the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store (新光三越百貨) entered the market, analysts said.
In 2014, Takashimaya Dayeh spent NT$1.2 billion on a remodeling project, hoping that a new image would attract young consumers, but it has not been able to meet its goal of NT$5 billion in annual revenue.
Meanwhile, Pacific Sogo and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi have been increasing their share of business in Tianmu, which is estimated to be NT$10 billion a year.
Takashimaya Dayeh said that over the past 20 years, it has built a management team that largely comprises local talent, adding that the share sale is unlikely to affect its operations.
Dayeh Group is a Taiwanese conglomerate that has a wide range of businesses, including retail, restaurants, healthcare, car engine development and property development.
The withdrawal of Takashimaya from the department store business in Taipei follows a similar move in March by Japan-based Hankyu Hanshin Department Stores, which was a joint owner of the Uni-President Hankyu department stores (統一阪急百貨) in Taipei and Kaohsiung for about 10 years.
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