House of Fraser gets additional £15m cash injection

House of Fraser has received a further £15m investment from its Chinese owner Sanpower Group after it suffered a drop in sales over the Christmas period.

The company lost £9m last year and saw its sales fall by 2.9% during the festive period.

Sanpower, chaired by billionaire Yuan Yafei, put £15m into the company in September last year and last week invested another £15m, bringing the total funds allocated to save the retailer to £30m.

The department store was acquired by Sanpower in 2014 for £450m and in the beginning of March, it was rumoured to be selling its 27.32% of its 51% stake in the company to tourism development firm Wuji Wenhua.

House of Fraser was recently in talks with its landlords to reduce its rents and it also appointed advisory group Rothschild to help refinance its debt package.

Last week, the department store held refinancing talks with Alteri Investors, with the aim of securing £40m of funding.