Britain’s top electrical retailer DSG International, the owner of high street chains Dixons, Currys and PC World, enhanced its online presence when it took a controlling stake in one of Europe’s leading internet retailers.

DSG agreed to pay €266m (£185m) for a 75% stake in Paris-based Fotovista that owns the Pixmania online retailer of digital photographic and other consumer electronic products.

From Guardian.co.uk:

The deal was the second big shake-up for DSG in a week after earlier announcing plans to ditch the Dixons brand on the high street and replace it with the name Currys.digital. Dixons will live on in cyberspace as one of DSG’s online brands.

DSG has already made a push into Europe and has stores in 14 countries including Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Poland.

Pixmania operates in 25 European countries, served from a central operation in Paris. Of those markets, DSG said Pixmania is the leading online electrical retailer in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. The business owns online digital photo services, a 250 store based photographic operation in France and specialist studio and portrait services in France and Belgium.

Fotovista had sales of €354m and profit of €6.2m in the relevant last year.

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