A 50/50 joint venture of Bangkok-based The Central Group and Austrian real estate company SIGNA Holding GmbH agreed to acquire Swiss luxury department store chain Magazine zum Globus AG as well as eight associated real estate properties from Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund, confirming an earlier report.

The transaction is worth more than CHF1 billion, Central Group Executive Chairman and CEO Tos Chirathivat said.

The acquisition expands the partners' footprint to five European countries—Germany, Austria, Italy, Denmark and Switzerland. The buyers jointly own German department stores operator The KaDeWe Group GmbH, and Central also owns nine Rinascente and Illum department stores in Italy and Denmark, respectively.

Vittorio Radice from Rinascente will assume leadership of Globus, while Thomas Herbert, Globus CEO, will become a member of the board of directors. Globus Deputy CEO Franco Savastano was named CEO.

Closing of the transaction is subject to the approval from the European competition authorities and is expected to complete by mid-2020.