Abercrombie adding stores in Middle East

The news comes only a few days after another central Ohio retailer, L Brands, disclosed that it has bought back all 26 of its Victoria’s Secret Beauty & Accessories stores in China from its franchise partners.

Abercrombie’s agreement builds on an earlier relationship with the Middle East company. Since 2013, the New Albany-based fashion retailer, along with Majid Al Futtaim Fashion, has opened eight stores in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

The agreement includes all three chains — Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie kids and Hollister Co. — with the first stores opening in early 2017 in Qatar and other stores opening in the second half of 2017 in Saudi Arabia. The retailer has not disclosed the exact number of stores it expects to open.

The expansion in the Middle East comes as Abercrombie continues its turnaround. A few years ago, the retailer suffered some setbacks in its international expansion, but sales overseas have rebounded in the past year, and “we continue to see considerable improvement in international markets,” said Joanne Crevoiserat, CFO, during the company’s most recent quarterly earnings report.

Victoria’s Secret Beauty & Accessories stores are smaller than regular Victoria’s Secret locations and carry such items as perfume and body care products, but not the retailer’s lingerie. The concept allows L Brands to test with low risk the Victoria’s Secret brand popularity in international markets.

While L Brands has not explicitly discussed the buyback, the company “is intently focused on China, building an organization to support a business three times the size of the U.S. business,” said analyst Kimberly Greenberger of Morgan Stanley in a note to investors.

In five years, L Brands could have sales of $1 billion in China, Greenberger said, and over the long term the retailer could have more than 1,000 Beauty & Accessories in China, in addition to a fleet of regular stores. That would match the total in the United States, where there are 992 regular Victoria’s Secret stores.