Ikea to open flagship Oxford Street store at site of shuttered Topshop

Ikea is to buy the flagship Oxford Circus retail store occupied by Topshop in a £385m deal subsequent the collapse of Sir Philip Green’s retail empire.

It will give the Swedish household furniture chain a presence at the heart of London’s browsing district amid booming demand from customers for its goods because lockdown was lifted.

Topshop fell into administration previous November after several years of declining product sales. The model was subsequently acquired by Asos, which declared designs to dispose of all physical stores.  

The offer is not the very first time the Swedish household furniture chain has attempted to shift to Oxford Circus. Ikea formerly sought to take over British Home Stores’ place on Oxford Road, and experienced also enquired about a web site at a nearby  redevelopment on Cavendish Square.

The offer provides Topshop’s fifty six-yr tenancy on the street to an close. It moved to Oxford Circus in 1965. 

Administrators took over the company which owns the web site previous November right after the collapse of Sir Philip’s Arcadia style empire. They explored both sale and leasing possibility before the offer with Ikea was agreed, according to React Information.

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Team experienced also been fascinated in the web site. But talks stalled because  Nike, an present tenant in the making which will maintain its retail store open up, has a clause in its lease prohibiting a competitor from functioning in the previous Topshop house. 

Great Portland Estates, Criterion Capital and Ramsbury all enquired about the web site without talks progressing to a severe position.

Returns from the sale will be utilized to reimburse senior lender Apollo Capital Administration. Leftover resources will go intp plugging the £510m deficit in Arcadia’s pension plan. 

The offer for the Oxford Circus retail store follows an agreement with US serious estate big Trammell Crow for Arcadia’s previous warehouse in Milton Keynes, as several Arcadia assets are on the marketplace. 

Ikea did not react to a request for comment.