Canadian retailer Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) has unveiled two new store locations in the Netherlands as part of its expansion drive in the country.
The company said it has signed contracts for a 20,600 m2 store in the Stadshart shopping centre in Amstelveen and premises covering more than 10,000 m2 in Citymall Almere. The Almere store comprises the space formerly occupied by department store V&D as well as premises on the first and second floors of the shopping centre.
The two new stores come on top of the 11 Dutch locations announced earlier which comprise a combined 172,400 m2. In total HBC plans to open 20 stores in the Netherlands over the next 24 months.
HBC entered Europe in June 2015 with the takeover of Galeria Kaufhof in Germany and Galeria Inno, Belgium's only department store group. HBC then turned its attention to the Netherlands where V&D went into liquidation earlier this year.
HBC said at the time that expansion into the Netherlands would 'leverage HBC Europe's existing infrastructure' and introduce two new retail concepts to the market. Richard Baker, governor and executive chairman of HBC, said: 'We were overwhelmed by the support for HBC in the Netherlands when we announced our entry into the market last week. I'm very pleased with the team's progress in securing our first four stores in prime retail locations. We feel good about the partnership from our landlords as well as the local municipalities, and look forward to bringing our exciting retail experiences to the Dutch customer with our plans of up to 20 stores in the next 24 months.'
