“A company owned by the family of French billionaire Christopher Descours is in talks to sell the building that will house the Apple store on Paris’s Champs-Elysees to Germany’s biggest pension fund, people with knowledge of the deal said,” Jack Sidders and Steven Arons report for Bloomberg.
“Bayerische Versorgungskammer, which oversees 12 compulsory retirement funds for doctors, pharmacists and Bavarian lawmakers, is close to agreeing terms to buy the 114 Avenue des Champs-Elysees building, which will host the store when it opens next year, the people said, asking not to be identified because the talks are ongoing,” Sidders and Arons report. “Morgan Stanley and broker Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. were hired last year to sell the property, the people said. CoStar News reported they were looking for 700 million euros ($864 million).”
“The sale to the German pension fund hasn’t been finalized and there’s no certainty a deal will be done,” Sidders and Arons report. “Apple will open a store in the building once work is completed, Le Figaro reported last year.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Sale of the property doesn’t seem to affect Apple’s plans for the store. In January, French news site Mac4Ever uncovered Apple’s building permit for the location. More info (in French) here.
Ah another great Apple store for the planet, thank you Tim Cook.
When you think of all the markets with a population of 2 million or more there is no end to the number of Stores Apple could open.
Hell, up here in the Inland Northwest (Spokane/Coeur d’Alene market) the population is just over 1 million, yet the Spokane Apple Store is the second busiest Store in Washington.
Opening more Apple stores may not necessarily mean a rise in Apple product sales but I think it’s a great way to promote the brand. It’s a shame Apple stores are considered a zero value service. Apple is quite unique when it comes to a tech company actually having its own retail stores but it’s generally overlooked as having any value, whatsoever. I’ve never actually heard Apple being praised for having brick-and-mortar stores and that somewhat puzzles me. Maybe because it’s considered a suck on overhead costs.
Agreed. And it’s not only branding. It’s also great value added, such as for customers who can bring their products and questions to the store and get resolution, often on the spot.