Danish home retail brand JYSK has lined up a ‘meet and greet’ with landlords who may have suitable retail premises available for its planned expansion into the Irish retail sector.

Jysk is calling on landlords to get in touch about available retail properties and is inviting them to attend a meeting with its executives in the Red Cow Moran Hotel on Dublin’s Naas Road on Monday, September 16, starting from 9am.

Jysk has opened four stores in Ireland this year, the first in Naas last April, and now plans add 40 more in the next three to five years. Four more are due to open within five months, in Sligo, Waterford, Cork and Limerick.

The company says that the Naas store performed second best out of 1,200 stores across its Nordic division in its opening month, and that it wants to exceed the initial '15 store openings in two years' business plan it set when it arrived in Ireland. 

But expansion director Poul Erik Larsen sounded a note of frustration: “It has been very difficult, time consuming, and expensive to open new stores in Ireland. We have noted that in other parts of Europe we can issue and sign a lease contract within two to four weeks, whereas in Ireland, this is taking up to 16 weeks in some cases. 

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“To achieve the volume of stores we want in the Irish market within two or three years, we need to secure a steady flow of new locations and that is something we’re actively pursuing right now.”

Apart from sophisticated interiors ranges, including both up to the minute trends and classic designs, Jysk is an expert in what it calls ‘sleeping culture’, offering everything from mattresses to bed frames and bases.

Property owners whose premises may fit the bill and who want to attend the meet and greet should contact Jenny Johnston at jjoh@jysk.com. And, connected to the expansion, Jysk wants to hire a development manager who can help with its plans by finding new properties and negotiating lease contracts. Applications open on Monday, September 2, via the company’s website.