Marks & Spencer to return to Finland

British department store group Marks & Spencer is set to return to Finland, after an absence of over

ten years.

The group recently signed a franchising agreement with S Group, a Finnish retailing cooperative organization, and is set to open seven physical stores, plus an online store local language in the country by fall 2015.

The first store scheduled to open will be in the Sokos department store in Helsinki, which is set to be launched sometime this October. Other M&S stores aimed to open later this year will be in the cities of Jyväskylä and Hämeenlinna.

M&S also plans on opening stores in Tampare, Lahti, Pori and Lappeenranta next year, alongside with its Finnish online store in the first half of 2015.

The British department store group previously owned a store in Helsinki, which was run alongside with franchisee Stockman. However the store was shut down in the late 1990s due to trading issues and withdrew its M&S stores from continental Europe by early 2000s.

Today M&S operates over 700 stores in the UK, as well as 450 stores around the world in emerging markets such as India and Russia. The department store group recently opened a flagship store in The Hague, The Netherlands after being absence from the country for ten years.