Bank of Canada back Weston’s bid for Selfridges

BROWN THOMAS owner Galen Weston’s $1 billion bid for Selfridges Plc, a luxury-goods retailer that competes with Harrods, may cost Canada’s second-richest man as little as $5 million of his own money.

Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest bank, is putting up the rest.

The Toronto-based bank agreed to lend Weston 99.5% of the £628.1 million he offered for Selfridges last month, according to loan agreements on file at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, his London lawyers. The documents, which as a bidder Weston had to make public, show he pledged the retailer’s assets and his holding company as collateral.