Word: mcarthurglen
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Kaempfer, 52, has shown Europe that discounting can be done with panache. Since 1993, his company, BAA McArthurGlen, has opened nine snazzy malls in Britain, France and Austria, and it plans to move soon into Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. Thanks to Kaempfer's vision, millions of Europeans can comfortably shop at places like the Parndorf Designer Outlet, east of Vienna, just as they can in Michigan or New Jersey, for huge savings on brand names like Nike and Gap. "BAA McArthurGlen is the pioneer of pan-European outlet shopping," says Clive Minihan, director of the Credo Group, a developer...
...proving his point in Ashford, a thriving, small city some 35 miles south of London. In March, BAA McArthurGlen opened a mall there, and it is drawing 60,000 shoppers a week seeking everything from leisurewear to luggage at bargain rates. Ashford's downtown retailers were nervous at first, admits Jo James, manager of the local Chamber of Commerce. But so far, losses to traditional retailers have been "minimal, on the whole around 1%." Moreover, James explains, the mall draws mostly shoppers from outside the region who wouldn't normally shop in Ashford...
Kaempfer launched his career in Europe after hitting a wall in the U.S. He grew up in Connecticut, graduated from New York University and Harvard Business School, then moved to Washington in 1973 to work for home developer (and co-founder of the original McArthurGlen) Alan Glen. Kaempfer started his own home-building business four years later and then created one of Washington's top office developers, Kaempfer Co. Trouble hit in the early '90s, when the capital's property market collapsed and left Kaempfer Co. wallowing in $1 billion worth of red ink. (It avoided bankruptcy and is once...
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