Britain’s Ratners Group Buys Sterling, Enters U.S. Market

Ratners Group PLC, Britain’s biggest jewelry chain, is going for the lucrative U.S. market with its acquisition of Sterling Inc., a leading American retailer, Chairman Gerald Ratner says.

“It represents a quantum leap--we’re no longer just in a ($2.40-billion) market, we’re now competing in a $22-billion market,” Ratner said Friday.

The group is buying Sterling for a little more than $200 million and has proposed a rights issue to raise about $200 million to fund the acquisition.

The company has a reputation in the British mass market for budget fashion jewelry and has become the biggest British chain in the field with a series of acquisitions begun in 1984.

Its research showed that Americans spend about four times more than the British on jewelry and go into debt to do so, Ratner said. “We’re very ambitious to carry on expanding,” he said.

Sterling, which runs 117 stores in 15 states, was “an extremely well-run, very slick company, unarguably the United States’ most successful jewelers,” he said.

The company had approached Sterling, the fourth-largest jewelry chain in the country, just over a week ago.

Ratner said his company saw 3,000 U.S. shops as a realistic target for the next 5 to 10 years.