Luxury brand chooses Merry Hill as base for first West Midlands store

Luxury watch company TAG Heuer has chosen Dudley’s Merry Hill as the location of its first store in the West Midlands.

The announcement is a significant boost to the intu centre, which has been hit by a spate of high profile closures in the past few months.

The latest came only this week with the closure of the Jones the Bootmaker shop after the company’s takeover by private equity firm Endless.

The watch brand’s boutique store will adjoin the Ernest Jones store, which is currently undergoing a full refurbishment.

TAG Heuer’s arrival coincides with a £110m facelift for the shopping centre as it looks to clawback revenue lost from the closure of flagship retailers such as BHS and Sainsbury’s.

Since intu took over full ownership of the massive site, it has had some success in attracting new brands and getting others to expand.

JD Sports has created one of its largest shops in Europe and Five Guys, Virgin Holidays and River Island are among other brands to have taken new or extra space.

intu originally purchased 50% of the Merry Hill Centre from Westfield in 2014 and it followed this with a £400m investment to acquire the remaining half last year.

Nick Round, regional director at intu, said: “intu Merry Hill demonstrates our strategy to bring together a strong leisure and retail mix across our portfolio of shopping centres, with a number of exciting improvements planned to ensure it is the stylish and sought-after destination that will help brands to flourish.

“This includes enhancing the centre’s catering offering and attracting more high-end aspirational retailers like TAG Heuer.”

The TAG Heuer boutique launches in April.