Topshop owner Sir Philip Green is planning to open a massive distribution hub in the US as a platform for its North American internet push.
The billionaire, who controls Topshop group Arcadia through a family shareholding, said the group is currently debating the timing of the hub that will provide a step change for the groups ambitions.
'At some point we are going to have other hubs [outside the UK]. We know we are going to have to put the goods in America. We will have to have an American warehouse, ship locally. It is a question of when not if,' Green told the Sunday Telegraph.
He also said he had signed a £50 million deal with IT firm Oracle to overhaul Arcadia's digital platforms. The retail group also includes chains such as Topman, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins, Burtons, Wallis, Evans, Outfit and the struggling department store Bhs.
The London-based group is mapping out a plan to open key stores worldwide and with local websites to cater for individual countries. Green is also considering small investments in entrepreneurial start-ups to better understnad the rapidly changing ways younger people are interacting with technology.
He said of the Oracle deal and the start-up investment plan: 'Good bad or indifferent, if you are not investing in new technology, you are going to get left behind.'
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