SM Retail is pleased to announce that it has agreed to a basic framework for establishing a franchise with home furnishings retailer Crate and Barrel through SM Retailer subsidiary HMS Development Corp.

Based on this agreement, the new franchise company will be established in the Philippines in 2014, with the first Crate and Barrel store in Manila to open at the Mega Fashion Hall on November 20. More stores will follow in the first quarter of 2015.

Crate and Barrel opened its doors in 1962 as a family business started by Gordon and Carole Segal in Chicago, Illinois.  The couple was inspired by the simple, well-designed, affordable products they had purchased on their honeymoon in Europe.  The Segals decided to open a home furnishings store, calling it ‘Crate and Barrel’ after the shipping crates and barrels which brought their inventory and became their first store fixtures. Working directly with European ateliers and factories to import their products, Crate and Barrel was among the first retailers to make modern tabletop and kitchenware affordable to American consumers.

Today, Crate and Barrel is an international, multi-channel family of brands, known for exclusive housewares and furniture designs, excellent value and superb customer service.  Owned by the Otto Group of Hamburg, Germany, since 1998, the company operates stores in most major North American markets as well as international franchise locations in Dubai, Singapore and Mexico.

SM Retail, the leading retail group in the Philippines, has over 50 years of experience in the industry.  Its retail operations include a chain of department stores, supermarkets, and hypermarkets strategically located in key cities in the Philippines.