French Galeries Lafayette to counter bid for Printemps

PARIS - French luxury retail group Galeries Lafayette plans to make a counter offer for rival department store group Le Printemps. Galeries Lafayette Chief Executive Philippe Houze told Le Figaro he hopes Qatari investors will link up with Galeries Lafayette and drop their support for Italian businessman Maurizio Borletti. Printemps is 70 percent owned by Deutsche Bank real estate investment unit RREEF and 30 percent by the Borletti Group, headed by Borletti.

A source close to the talks told Reuters on Wednesday that RREEF and the Borletti Group were in talks to sell Le Printemps to Qatari investors for up to 2 billion euros.($2.67 billion)

"Borletti's project is simply to get Qatar to finance the acquisition since he does not have the funds himself," Houze was quoted by Le Figaro as saying.

The paper said Houze will propose a deal under which Qatar buys Printemps's real estate assets for one billion euros while Galeries Lafayette buys its operations for 800 million euros.

"We will contact the Qataris to propose that we buy Printemps together," Houze said, adding that he did not expect objections from antitrust authorities.

Borletti, who owns Italian department store La Rinascente, bought Printemps together with RREEF from French retail and luxury group PPR for 1.1 billion euros in 2006.

Galeries Lafayette - whose flagship Paris store is right next to Le Printemps - had also made a bid then.

Borletti and RREEF have spent around 350 million euros on renovations and making Printemps more upscale. Printemps now has 16 stores and employs 4,000. Its 2011/12 turnover rose 13 percent to 1.45 billion euros.

RREEF had been looking to sell for months, while Borletti told Reuters in January he wanted to hold on to the business.

Qatar has bought a string of stakes in high-end retailing, fashion and luxury goods companies.

It bought London's Harrod's department store in 2010 for an estimated 1.5 billion pounds in 2010. Last year, the Qatari royal family acquired Italian fashion brand Valentino for 700 million euros.

Qatar's sovereign wealth fund also owns 8.7 percent of U.S. jeweller Tiffany & Co, a stake of over 1 percent in French luxury group LVMH and a small stake in German sports car maker Porsche.

Qatar has close diplomatic and business ties with France.

It owns a number of buildings on Paris jewellery Mecca Place Vendome, minority stakes in companies such as waste and water management group Veolia Environnement, and controls leading French football club Paris St Germain.

Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Gary Hill and Dan Grebler