Sanpower unit selling controlling stake in UK firm House of Fraser

The Chinese owner of struggling British department store chain House of Fraser intends to sell its majority stake to another company from China, according to a Chinese stock exchange filing.

Less than four years after buying the well-known British store, which was founded in Glasgow in 1849, Nanjing Xinjiekou Department Store Co is selling a 51 percent stake to tourism development company Wuji Wenhua.

Nanjing Xinjiekou is a subsidiary of private business conglomerate Sanpower Group, which bought an 89 percent stake in House of Fraser in 2014 for 480 million pounds ($666.4 million) - a record for Chinese investment in foreign retail.