Dubai-based furniture and homewares retailer Marina Gulf is gearing up to make its UK debut as it eyes high-profile locations in London ahead of a planned opening next summer.

The high-quality mid-market retailer - which operates 27 stores across Middle Eastern territories including Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi - has hired property agent Harper Dennis Hobbs to look for shops in prominent locations such as Regent Street, Kensington High Street, King’s Road, and furniture destination Tottenham Court Road, as well as shopping centres Lakeside and Bluewater.

It is not known how many stores the family-owned retailer is seeking but it wants to test different formats and use London as a springboard to the rest of the UK and Europe. It is seeking stores of up to 25,000 sq ft.

Marina Gulf executive director Khurshid Vakil said: “The UK is a sophisticated retail environment and we are confident the product range will appeal to the UK consumer as it had greatly appealed to the UK expatriates in the Gulf markets that the brand operates in.”

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