Zara eyes 5 Oxford St stores

A new store will give the Zara chain seven shops in the Oxford St-Regent St area. Photo / Panhard, Wikimedia

The fashion chain Zara plans to open a record fifth store in London's Oxford St, reinforcing the buoyant demand for prime retail property in the capital.

Zara, owned by the Spanish giant Inditex, already has three shops there and has signed up for a fourth in the street's Park House development, which opens next year.

It has applied for planning consent on a fifth store at 61-65 Oxford St near Tottenham Court Rd Tube.

Zara also has two stores in nearby Regent St. Other brands Inditex operates in central London include Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti and Bershka.

One of Zara's biggest rivals in London is Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), the Swedish clothing group. It has four shops in Oxford St and one in Regent St.

But the Swedish group said it has not signed up for the Park House scheme, which is the biggest development in Oxford St for 40 years.

The property giant Land Securities sold Park House to the Qatari investment firm Barwa in July 2010 for £250 million ($495 million), as well as a profit share on completion.

Inditex, which also operates the Stradivarius, Oysho and Uterqe chains, has a total of 5527 stores in 82 countries.

Based in Spain's Coruna, the group delivered profits of €1.93 billion ($3.1 billion) last year, on turnover of €13.8 billion.

H&M, which also owns the H&M Home, Cos, Monki, Weekday and Cheap Monday brands, has nearly 2500 stores in 44 territories.

Revenues in the year to November 30 were 110 billion Swedish krona on profits of 15.8 billion krona ($2.8 billion).

- INDEPENDENT