The Parisian Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville (BHV) in the hands of a small family property company

Negotiations had been underway since February and were ultimately successful. The Galeries Lafayette group announced on Friday "having finalized the sale of BHV Marais to the SGM group", after "obtaining the approval of the competent regulatory authorities".

“The Parly 2 store is also affected by this operation,” said the seller. This is a BHV store located in the Westfield Parly 2 shopping center in Yvelines, near Versailles.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

It is a change of era for the department store with the famous rotunda which has dominated rue de Rivoli since 1913. The BHV, which according to the unions has 1.300 employees without counting the external sales demonstrators, belonged to Galeries Lafayette for more than thirty years.

Refocusing of Galeries Lafayette

But the store has been in difficulty for years, further aggravated recently, according to management, by traffic difficulties on Rue de Rivoli. It had, like the Galeries Lafayette on Boulevard Haussmann, been hit hard by the Covid-19 epidemic, which had reduced the flow of tourists and workers in the city center of the capital and forced stores to keep their doors closed for periods of confinement.

At the time of the announcement of entry into exclusive negotiations, the Galeries Lafayette group explained that the operation was for it a way to "concentrate its efforts and available resources on its eponymous brand, to reconstitute its cash flow following the "impact suffered head-on by the Covid crisis" and to refocus around its "flagship" on Boulevard Haussmann.

On Friday, the group said it was “convinced that the SGM group will be the most committed and innovative player to continue to grow the potential” of the Parisian department store.

SGM is a commercial real estate company founded by Frédéric and Maryline Merlin, young thirty-somethings and brother and sister. At the end of 2021, they had already bought seven regional stores from Galeries Lafayette, in Angers, Dijon, Grenoble, Le Mans, Limoges, Orléans and Reims.

Annonay trader

The company, which specializes in the rehabilitation of city center commercial assets in decline, also operates around ten city center shopping centers in France, in Roubaix, Tourcoing and Châlons-en-Champagne. , in Lille, in Nîmes, in Saint-Nazaire, in Kremlin-Bicêtre, in Mulhouse and in Montigny-le-Bretonneux.

“We are a company that has been working for city center retail for several years and to have the opportunity to put our know-how to good use” in a store like BHV, “it’s just crazy,” declared mid-February Frédéric Merlin to AFP.

“Our strength and what should allow us to succeed” in recovering the BHV, “is that we have the agility of a smaller structure”, capable of “adapting to local needs”, he added. estimated.

The second oldest Parisian department store after Bon Marché, BHV was founded in 1856 by a merchant from Annonay (Ardèche), François Xavier Ruel, who came to try his luck in Paris after meeting his wife, Marie-Madeleine Poncerry, In Lyon.

It was the latter who would take charge that year of a store bearing the name "Grand Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville-Ruel Jeune", at the corner of rue de Rivoli and rue des Archives, detailed a work published in 2016, which presented it as "Parisians' favorite department store".