LS Travel Retail has purchased Duty Free Stores Wellington Ltd.; in addition, its subsidiary, Aelia, has been selected as the preferred bidder of AdR Retail.
The 100% share purchase of DFSWL means the company will assume responsibility for the duty free operations at Gold Coast and Adelaide airports in Australia and Queenstown, Dunedin, Hamilton and Rotorua airports in New Zealand. The sale also includes the online duty free business and downtown Hamilton store.
“The purchase of DFSWL is an important and exciting step in our development within the Asia-Pacific,” says Dag Rasmussen, chairman and CEO of Lagardé¨re Services. “It is a physical manifestation of our duty free strategy – a commitment that will see us rapidly evolve our duty free footprint and capabilities in the region. Added to our existing duty free operations at Noumea Airport, the acquisition of DFSWL is the ideal platform for growth and an opportunity for us to bring our international standards and approach to duty free retailing to the Asia-Pacific.
“The DFSWL operation is a fantastic mix of high growth, tourism driven assets and stable origin and destination businesses,” he continues. “For us, the synergy and opportunity was an obvious fit. We also believe the entry of another global duty free player into the local market will benefit the industry within the region. Competition is a great motivator. It encourages growth and constant improvement within the retail offer, ultimately benefiting passengers, retailers and the airport.”
Emmanuel de Place, COO of Lagardé¨re Services responsible for the Asia-Pacific region, says the acquisition is key to the company’s ongoing development.
“DFSWL is an established, highly successful duty free organization with a strong presence throughout Australia and New Zealand,” he says. “Our purchase of the company gives us a number of dynamic assets, long-term supply partnerships and perhaps most importantly, a very experienced and dedicated team of duty free specialists in this part of the world.”
Don Archibald, founder and owner of DFSWL, says his company has been “committed to the long-term development and evolution of the duty free industry for over 25 years.”
“It has been our great passion to be involved in this industry and our business wouldn’t be what is today without the dedication of our equally passionate team. It was important for us to find an organization that shared our excitement for the future of the industry and an understanding that people are what makes a business successful. We are confident in LS Travel Retail we have found the right organization to take the DFSWL business to the next level.”
For the acquisition of AdR Retail, the current operator of duty free/paid concessions in Roma airports, Rasmussen says, “We are grateful for the opportunity given to us by Aeroporti di Roma. We look forward to working with AdR and its team, and to bringing exemplary levels of customer service and commercial performance to the retail operations at Roma.
“Together with our brand partners, we ambition to create the fantastic airport experience Rome deserves,” he continues. “We have shown a real know-how in operating similar platforms in re-development, in particular in Paris at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and these successful experiences will be of great help for completing this project. We have very ambitious plans to become the No. 2 in travel retail worldwide over the next five years, and this tender is a strategic building block in achieving that goal.”
