by Lowndes Queensway in May 1989 to a group led by Duncan Chadwick for £22 million. Hamleys was bought in June 2003 by the Baugur Group, an Icelandic investment company. When Baugur collapsed, its stake in the toy store was taken over by the Icelandic bank Landsbanki. In September 2012 Groupe Ludendo, a toy retailer based in France with shops also located in Belgium, Spain and Switzerland, bought Hamleys for a reported £60 million. In October 2015 it was reported that Groupe Ludendo was negotiating the sale of Hamleys, possibly to a Hong Kong company owned by a relative of the owner of department store House of Fraser. It was subsequently purchased by C.Banner, a large Chinese footwear and fashion wear conglomerate based in Nanjing. In May 2019, Indian retail company, Reliance Retail, part of the Reliance Industries, announced that it has acquired Hamleys for £67.96 million (around ₹620 crore) using international bank receipt. United Kingdom stores Regent Street Hamleys expanded and moved its flagship store in London from No. 200 Regent Street to its current site at Nos. 188–196, Regent Street, in 1981, which in 1994 was the largest toy shop in the world. Hamleys' flagship store has seven floors covering , all devoted to toys, with different categories of toy on each floor. The ground floor is traditionally for stuffed toys (including Steiff), and is decked out with a diverse array of stuffed animals, from regular teddy bears to more exotic plushes such as turtles and dolphins, and enormous life-sized giraffes and elephants. Public transit is available via the Oxford Circus underground station. Other UK stores In 1987 Hamleys' second store opened in York. However, it closed less than 12 months later. In 1987 Hamleys opened a new store in one of the richest shopping streets in the UK, Northumberland Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. Surprisingly, it operated for only 12 months, and closed in 1988. It had seemed a "perfect combination" (Hamleys and Northumberland Street), but it did not work out. Again, in 1987, Hamleys opened a new store in Milsom Street, in the city of Bath, North East Somerset, and just like the other stores, it also closed within 12 months. As of 2022, there are thirty Hamleys stores across the UK, including sites at the St Enoch Centre in Glasgow, at the Trafford Centre in Greater Manchester, at Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex, Bluewater Shopping Centre