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Breeze claims to have bought stake in rival store Sogo

Breeze Center Mall (微風廣場) said yesterday it has bought a 30 percent stake in rival Pacific Sogo Department Store (太平洋崇光百貨), a claim Pacific Sogo immediately denied.

"On Aug. 5 ... we bought 30 percent of the shares [of Pacific Sogo] and became one of Pacific Sogo's major shareholders," Breeze spokesman Jason Tsai (蔡明澤) told the Taipei Times yesterday.

Tsai refused to elaborate on how much Breeze had paid for the shares or who it had bought them from, but said: "On Monday, we will have a press conference revealing all the details of the deal."

Although Tsai said the share purchase was to help establish collaboration between Breeze and Sogo, news of the move seems likely to intensify the rivalry between the two.

Pacific Sogo said it was impossible that Breeze had bought such a large stake in it.

"We are 100 percent sure that our parent company, Pacific Distribution Investment Co (太平洋流通), still controls nearly 80 percent of the shares in Pacific Sogo," said Vice President Lee Kuang-rong (李光榮).

Other entities holding Pacific Sogo's shares are Pacific Construction Co (太平洋建設), Sogo Japan and a local retail company called Taiwan Chung-Kuang Co (台灣崇廣).

"Though one of our investors associated with Sogo Japan did sell about 4.8 percent of the shares, this transaction was claimed invalid by Sogo Japan on Thursday," Lee said. "Therefore, it's impossible for Breeze to control 30 percent of our shares."

Pacific Sogo is a subsidiary of the nation's largest construction company, Pacific Group (太平洋集團). However, with the parent company suffering from a slump in the real-estate market, the department store has become the only breadwinner of the group.

Last year, Pacific Sogo made NT$2 billion in profit from sales of NT$40 billion. However, Pacific Group has used the store to borrow money, leaving the store servicing loans worth NT$10.6 billion.

Local Chinese-language media recently speculated that Sogo Department Store executive director Darren Chang (章啟正), son of Pacific Group chief Chang Min-chiang (章民強), may soon leave his position. Lee declined to comment on the report, saying that Sogo will hold a shareholders' meeting the week after next.
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