Baugur wants to add more jewels to its UK crown

LIKELY new Jenners owner Baugur is keen to snap up jewellery stores H Samuel and Mappin and Webb, it emerged today.

The Icelandic company, which tabled a £351 million bid for department store chain House of Fraser last week, has said it would like to add the two jewellers to its portfolio after private equity bidders abandoned takeover plans for the whole of parent company Signet.

But Baugur will have to battle it out with entrepreneur Gerald Ratner, whose career at his former family jewellery firm, then called Ratners, famously ended when he called one product "total crap" and said a Marks and Spencer prawn sandwich would last longer than a gold earring from Ratners.

Mr Ratner, who is looking to come back to the high street, had hoped that private equity groups KKR and Apax Partners would sell him Signet's UK chains. But the pair dropped their £2 billion bid plans and Mr Ratner will now have to deal with Signet direct.

Baugur already owns jewellers Goldsmiths, which has stores at Princes Street and Ocean Terminal, and Mappin and Webb, which has a shop on George Street.

Baugur chief executive Jón Ásegir Jóhannesson said he believed the two jewellery brands would be a good fit for his growing UK retail portfolio in addition to the agreed House of Fraser bid.

He added he would not make a bid for the whole Signet group, which includes operations in the US, but was only interested in the "struggling" UK arm.